[Satellite News 03-21-11] SES World Skies’ new short- and medium-term business models for North and South America are focused on growth in the video market and leveraging vertical markets in the enterprise sector. While plans for both regions differ in terms of available technology and offerings, SES World Skies hopes the results of its efforts include the expansion of its footprint and an increased variety in its customer base.
    Dolores Martos, SES World Skies’ vice president of Latin America; Steve Bunke, vice president of North America; and Steve Corda, vice president of market development, spoke with Satellite News about the operator’s efforts to enhance the connectivity and end-user experience of its customers.
    In North America, Bunke and Corda are leading an initiative to capitalize on the fledgling 3-D video market by developing strong relationships with major media companies in the United States.
    “Within the United States, the HD market is pretty much rolled out, so the next emphasis we’re looking at is 3-D. We’re now leveraging and expanding the partnerships we’ve formed with U.S. media companies over the last 30 years to develop standard practices for 3-D that we hope will increase the quality of the home consumer experience,” Bunke said. “With the roll-out of 3-D and now more full-time 3-D channels, there were preconceived notions and unusually high expectations for content. We’ve focused a little too much on the quantity rather than the quality of that content.”
    To help develop 3-D standards, Corda spent the last 18 months establishing a 3-D signal and technology test bed in Princeton, N.J. SES World Skies initially wanted to study how 3-D signals change throughout the satellite path, however, the operator quickly expanded its research after discovering inconsistencies on the 3-D manufacturing side. “When we started, we brought in programmers to evaluate our content and look for artifacts over the system. We wanted to get a general sense of the technology and answer questions like, ‘What kind of encoding do we use?’ and ‘What can we do to ensure the highest quality of signal?’ Our initial results produced some eye-opening findings,” said Corda. “Every piece of the chain has the ability to create imperfections. We developed test patterns to pull those imperfections out and bring those results to the manufacturers.”
    The 3-D consumer market has matured rapidly over the last year. According to Bunke, consumers are more aware of the technology and can easily discern between high-and low-quality 3-D, which makes standards research crucial in developing a platform. “There are a lot more TVs out there and a lot of the manufacturers have embedded 3-D processing in the TVs at just an incremental increase in costs. This is mostly due to the advent of the active glasses and the business model that sees consumers paying for the technology in the glasses instead of on the display, which I think it has made it easier for people buying sets to make sure they’re 3-D capable, even if the content is not widely available,” said Bunke.
    The lab in Princeton is still in its early stages but has progressed to the second phase of its testing, which began in mid-March, Corda said. “The second phase of our testing is going to be focused on production and manufacturing. We’re going to explore and identify the best types of cameras to use for 3-D, what kind of camera angles should production teams use, and what kind of obstructions they should avoid. There’s a big open-ended invitation right now for content producers to work with us on this process.”
    SES World Skies’ enterprise sector plans for North and South America converge with vertical offshore markets in the Caribbean. Bunke said the company’s recent contract renewal to deploy VSAT network services to Stallion Oil is just a taste of how the company plans to maximize its assets on AMC-9. “We’ve served Stallion Oil’s VSAT network on AMC-9 for three years. That network is used to connect their other rigs in the United States and the Caribbean. Oil and gas is perfect example of a vertical market that’s really on the upswing and really growing with us. We’ve seen significant growth in this market over the last couple of years.”
    Martos is employing the same strategy in Latin America, using capacity from one of its two hot orbital slots at 67 degrees West. “Enterprise customers, such as the one we’ve established with Axesat, are really taking advantage of what we can offer from AMC-4. Axesat is an Andean enterprise entity that utilizes Ku-band to meet its demands by establishing voice, video and data access points in Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Central America and the Caribbean,” she said. “That deal opens the door to new opportunities for us to ramp up the growth SES has enjoyed in Latin America.”
    SES World Skies’ video market strategy for South America is a little different, as DTH still drives a majority of the region’s growth and HD video and 4G connectivity are still in the introductory phase. “Latin America is still divided into C- and Ku-band customers. Some countries rely on C-band and others on Ku-band. For SES, these two types of services are built on our 47 degrees West slot and they are both united by unprecedented growth in demand. We also have digital divide programs in the region, and have worked over the last 10 years promoting and investing in having Internet communications to remote areas. The introduction and expansion of 3G and the introduction of 4G is another source of demand.”
   Martos said the operator recognized the need for a short- and medium-term strategy in order to capitalize on the Latin American growth opportunity. “In the short-term, we moved a satellite to a new orbital location at 67 degrees West last year to bring additional Ku-band to the region. We opened a new orbital location earlier in March to transition another spacecraft to 47 degrees West and explore growth opportunities in that neighborhood. For DTH, we have one of the main players in the region, American Mobile, purchasing our bouquet of services on AMC-21,” said Martos. “In the medium-term, we already procured our replacement satellite, SES-6, to serve cable headends, but we didn’t just replace the satellite. We expanded our capacity. This is especially significant for Ku-band, and we’ll have 42 additional Ku-band transponders when SES-6 launches in early 2013.”