Sat, 25 Aug 2001

Satelindo targets 14 new transponder contracts this year

JAKARTA (JP): Telecommunications company PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia (Satelindo) has signed an agreement with Myanmar for a five-year lease of the Palapa C-2 satellite's transponder, with 13 more contracts expected to be signed this year.

Satelindo's director for satellite services, Djoko Prajitno said on Friday that Myawady TV, Myanmar's government-owned television company, had signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this month to lease one-quarter of a transponder from Satelindo.

He declined to disclose the value of the contract but Satelindo's president, USM Tampubolon, had earlier said that the lease of one transponder costed about US$1.7 million a year.

Djoko said that 13 other local and foreign companies had expressed interest in leasing Palapa C-2's transponders.

Nine companies planned to use the satellite for telecommunications purposes while the rest for broadcasting, he added.

"Malaysia's Cellcom is interested, so is Taiwan and China for religious programs," Djoko said, adding that Satelindo was also eying contracts from Indonesia's four new privately-owned television stations.

The new television stations are Gramedia's TV7, Global TV, LaTV, and TransTV.

Djoko said that Satelindo's satellite services were in high demand as its coverage was currently the widest in the region covering the Pacific rim, Iran and Vladivostok in the west and Sydney and New Zealand in the south.

"We hold 100 percent of the broadcasting market in the country," he said, explaining that the satellite was host to 55 local and foreign audio and video broadcasting companies.

A television station leasing a transponder from Satelindo would automatically have access to more than 5 million viewers in the Asia Pacific region including 3.5 million viewers in Indonesia, Djoko said, adding that those were the numbers of viewers in the region who had direct access to a satellite dish.

"So it's very convenient for new television stations, they could guarantee their advertisers that at least 5 million people would have access to the channel," he said.

The Palapa C-2 satellite was built by the California-based Hughes Space & Communications (now Boeing Satellite Systems) for Satelindo and another telecommunications company PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN).

It was launched into geostationary orbit on May 15, 1996, by Arianespace using the Ariane 44L launcher and weighed 2,989 kilograms at liftoff.

The satellite is equipped with 30 C-band transponders, including six onboard spares and four Ku-band transponders.

Djoko said that the satellite was currently at between 85 percent to 90 percent capacity and to keep up with growing demand, Satelindo would sign an agreement with satellite operator GE-Americon for the use of its GE-1A satellite's transponders.

"This way we could use GE-Americon's transponders for some of our customers and they could use ours for some of their customers. A bit like a joint marketing agreement," he said, explaining that as the two satellites -- Palapa C-2 and GE-1A -- were placed at different positions in orbit so the customers could choose which satellite suited them best.

Satelindo is also planning to launch a new Palapa C satellite to backup and eventually replace the existing Palapa C-2 when it expires in 2011.

Djoko said the contract for the manufacture of the satellite was expected to be signed by 2003 and that it would take at least five years to build.

He said that it was therefore impossible to launch the new satellite in 2003, correcting his earlier statement reported by The Jakarta Post on Thursday.(tnt)