SingTel is a major presence on the Asian communications landscape. The telco, Singapore’s largest, also owns a majority stake in Australian telco, Optus. It has launched IPTV in Singapore with its mio TV service, which announced June 29, that it had gone through the 100,000 customer mark.
    It also has a significant presence in the satellite arena. Its SingTel Satellite division is a growing part of the company. SingTel Satellite co-owns satellites with other leading regional telco, Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom, and has recently signed a deal with Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) to gain access to even more capacity on the operator’s new ABS-2 satellite. The ABS-2 satellite, one of the biggest satellites ever launched in Asia, will likely launch in the late 2011/early 2012 timeframe. SingTel will own multiple C-band transponders on this satellite.
    Titus Yong, SingTel’s vice president of satellite talks about the importance of satellite technology for SingTel and how the company is using satellites to become an even stronger force across the region.

Yong: We have signed the agreement with ABS, and this will now give us coverage all the way to Africa, Middle East and Central Asia. The most important part of this is that we have 88 degrees East where the ST-2 satellite will launch. This will give us the coverage from Asia all the way to the Middle East, as well as coverage of Central Asia, especially Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is at 88 degrees East. We will also have something at 70 degrees East, giving us coverage all the way to Africa in C-band. That is also complemented by the fact we have indirect ownership of Apstar 5. All these options give us a full range of satellite coverage across current and emerging markets. We still have Optus satellites, so we have a strong regional position.

Yong: We have been doing that for many years. Most of our new growth is coming from the Middle East and central Asia. We are also seeing more demand for services in Africa. But, really a lot of commercial activity is happening in Asia. We are engaging a lot of customers in Hong Kong, Singapore and other Asian cities. This is because there are many multi-national companies and broadcasters operating in this part of the world. With our network of 37 offices in 19 countries and territories we are able to engage customers from all parts of the world.
    It is quite interesting when you looked at CommunicAsia this year. We saw customers come from Africa and other places such as the Kingdom of Bhutan, for example. There were people from Afghanistan and Pakistan making deals at CommunicAsia.

Yong: We will. We are talking to other operators such as SES New Skies and maybe even Intelsat to meet our capacity needs. I think beyond ST-2, and the new satellite, as well as ST-1, we will be looking to expand our capacity. In fact, some of the capacity we have bought recently will be on a long-term basis. We are beginning to consolidate some of the capacity we need on longer term leasing arrangements. We have a long-term leasing agreement with ProtoStar. That relationship will remain very strong.

Yong: I think the days are gone where you launch satellites with only about 10 percent to 20 percent of committed capacity.. The growth is tremendous. No matter how big the satellite you are putting up, there is still not enough capacity to satisfy demand. There are seven DTH licenses in India. You have similar things about to happen in Pakistan. I heard that Bangladesh is looking to launch its own satellite, because they need capacity and they have issues with WiMax. People are looking for certainty in the business case. There is not enough capacity to go around

Yong: In the last two-to-three years we have stopped looking at satellite services as just part of our global carriage business. Rather, we now see satellite services as an enablers for customer business. In the last few years, we have changed our focus in all the verticals. We have gone beyond just offering bandwidth. For example, in the maritime business we are offering fully-managed solutions that can improve productivity on a ship and crew welfare. These solutions include ‘always-on’ unlimited broadband Internet access, email, low-cost Voice over IP (VoIP) calls, GSM onboard and ship surveillance. Satellite underlines the infrastructure but we have repackaged it as more of an enabler for the customer.
    We have just built the broadcast innovation center to cater to the needs of the broadcast media industry. We have bought together all the capabilities we have across SingTel to give the industry a boost. For example, you can see video being broadcast across an MPLS network combining with satellite. So, I can actually bring in a video from India via cable, and then deliver it across satellite, turn it around in Australia and Hong Kong. We can of course now encode it, and deliver it across mobile TV and IPTV. Today, we also do things like IP broadcasting. We even have services like karaoke-on-Demand on ships. You can now pull new songs down for entertainment. We can provide localized news.     We have content management solutions now, so we see an opportunity for us in terms of digital signage. So, we provide you with software so you can see your channels across Asia. You don’t need to have infrastructure in Singapore in order to manage your channels. We are taking a very different direction now. The underlying infrastructure is changing. We are investing in new satellites, as well as new Earth station capabilities, as well as more electronics.

Yong: SingTel has 249 million mobile subscribers in all the markets we operate. We have a working group within SingTel looking at the future of TV. It is going to be about the multiple platforms we have as a group, so TV in a room, on a mobile, in a car for example. Just because there has not been a huge take-up of mobile TV at the moment, it does not mean it is going to happen. A lot of people are trying to make this work, as this is the next choice for Generation X.
    It is all about watching content when you want to watch it. In Asia, we love technology, we rush out to buy the latest smart phones and TVs. People have no problem discarding their 32-inch TV of a year ago and buying something bigger and better. I think if you look at Singapore in general, there are typically three TVs in the home as well as a PC. It is happening. It is getting the home delivery right as well as user acceptance across multiple platforms. If you give me a video, I can compress it and encode it in 3GP, and send it across to the Philippines through our submarine network right into your video server and into your 3G network. People will start to accept watching content on mobile. It is coming. We can help service providers achieve this.

Yong: Yes. We are delivering satellite capacity not just for DTH services but also for backhaul services. Many of these are now carrying video and data traffic. I think this will continue to grow tremendously over time. You talk about things like crew welfare for maritime services. We never foresaw this happening. We also have launched a new service where you can convert your TV terminal into the ship into a broadcast terminal. By combining the Inmarsat capability, we can convert that into an IP terminal and pump TV on-demand on board the ship. This is something that we didn’t think we would be able to do a few years ago. We can suddenly have services such as IP-based voice and video on ships. This is something amazing. We are not saying we have started this, but through our partnerships we are able to bring these kinds of services to our customers.