Ketapang harbour, Indonesia. Photo: Domy Kamsyah (Flickr)

[Via Satellite 05-15-2015] Kacific Broadband Satellites has reached a $78 million long-term agreement with Indonesian satellite service provider BigNet for high speed broadband starting in 2017. The contract is the seventh for Kacific, which plans a Ka-band High Throughput Satellite (HTS) known as Kacific 1 to serve the Pacific market. The coverage is to include Indonesia’s more than 17,000 islands, providing broadband to BigNet customers with 75cm to 1.2m diameter inexpensive Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs).

Christian Patouraux, CEO of Kacific called the deal “the largest proof we have had to the key underlying belief behind the vision of the founders of Kacific: broadband Internet demand is stifled by the current high prices,” adding that “bringing connectivity with disruptively low cost can unlock tremendous untapped demand in the South-East Asian and Pacific countries.”

Indonesia is the fourth most populated country on Earth, following China, India and the United States. The country’s 250 million inhabitants constitute 3.5 percent of the global population. BigNet CEO Nicolas Tannady expects the HTS service will create opportunities for government and enterprise users to provide services in regions that would otherwise be underserved.

“Both companies believe that if you lower the price of broadband sufficiently you will generate demand and create a market where others thought none existed in countries like Indonesia,” said Patouraux.