Hughes looks to businesses in RI
JAKARTA (JP): Competition in Indonesia's satellite business will become stiffer with the offer of a new high-tech satellite service by Hughes of the United States.
Hughes Communications Inc., an affiliate of Hughes International Corporation, will introduce the new satellite-based service, called Spaceway, with a spacecraft in the Geostationary Earth Orbit offering a Fixed Satellite System by using Ka-band spectrum.
The system will consist of four interconnected regional satellites providing service to nearly all of the world's population.
Spaceway will provide "bandwidth-on-demand" -- to transmit and receive voice, data, video, audio and multimedia at any time from any place -- at up to six megabits per second.
The director of communications affairs of Hughes Communications, Jeffrey D. Torkelson, told The Jakarta Post here recently that the first satellite of the system will be in service by 1999.
"The first satellite will beam to Asia, the region with the most significant growth," he said.
The first satellite, which will orbit at the 111 degrees east longitude, will also cover Indonesia. The other three satellites will orbit at the 101 degrees west longitude (covering North America), 49 degrees west longitude (Central and South America) and 25 degrees east longitude (Europe, Africa and Middle East), respectively.
Torkelson said that Indonesia will be one Spaceway's most potential markets.
Unlike the regular communications satellite system which applies Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), Spaceway's end users will access the system with Ultra Small Aperture Terminal (USAT), high-tech equipment which can interface with a wide variety of equipment, including telephones, facsimiles, personal computers and videos.
When in service, Spaceway is likely to face fierce competition with Indonesia's communications system, the Palapa-C series, which are operated by PT Satelindo. Spaceway is of a HS-702 type.
However, both the HS-601 Palapa-C1 and the Palapa-C2 spacecraft currently serve mostly broadcasting companies in the Asian region. The Palapa-C2 is the newest of Indonesia's eight satellites manufactured by Hughes Space and Communications, a subsidiary of Hughes.
Indonesia, with wide experience in satellite telecommunications technology, expects to win competition in the leasing of satellite transponders within the Asia-Pacific region.
The country's satellite business has shown significant growth since its establishment in 1976. Indonesia has thus far secured some 20 slots for its satellites in the orbits at the Swiss-based International Telecommunications Union.
In addition to Hughes, Indonesia also has other partners in satellite systems, including Lockheed Martin, which will develop the Garuda satellites for satellite-based mobile telecommunications, and CTA, which will develop Indostar direct broadcasting satellite system.
Apart of being a possible sharp competitor for Indonesia, Hughes has signed an agreement with the state-owned aircraft assembler PT IPTN to involve the latter firm in certain parts of the Palapa-C and the Palapa-D projects.
Besides providing support in the satellite business, several subsidiaries of Hughes have also been involved in other projects in Indonesia, including the fixed wireless telecommunications developed by PT Ratelindo and the air traffic control system in Jakarta. (icn)