Telecommunications firms reach for the stars

JAKARTA (JP): The business angle of Star Wars continues this year with a vengeance in Asia, with dozens of satellites scheduled to be launched over the continent.

Indonesia's Palapa-C2 satellite is one of the spacecrafts scheduled to be launched in May 1996, using Arianespace/European Space Agency.

The battle for the airwaves from transponders is picking up momentum, with several satellites, such as Intelsat-801 and Intelsat-802, Inmarsat-3F2 and Inmarsat-3F3, Tempo-2, Measat-2, Thaicom-3, Mabuhay and Arabsat-2A as well as other regional and domestic satellites scheduled for orbit.

Asia has just one transponder for every seven million people, compared to one transponder for every one million people in the United States and one transponder for every 300,000 people in Europe.

This year, Asia will see increased transponder availability reach almost 500, while in the next five years the number of transponders in the continent will double.

The International Telecommunications Union has registered more than 50 new notifications and claims for geostationary orbit slots. It is the union which allocates satellite positions over the region.

In 2005, it is estimated that at least 3 billion people will ask for direct access to global telecommunications networks. It is also estimated that at least 200 million households in Asia will subscribe to cable television and 70 million houses in Asia- Pacific will receive direct broadcasting services from satellites over the region.

The Palapa-C2, scheduled to be launched by Western Europe's 86th Ariane rocket on May 15, is among the satellites slated for liftoff this year.

An Ariane 44L launch vehicle, equipped with four liquid strap- on boosters, will be used to launch the three-ton Palapa-C2 for PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia (Satelindo). Another spacecraft, weighing 1.1 tons, will be launched for an Israeli institute on the same vehicle.

Ariane rockets are launched from the European Space Agency's center in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeast coast of South America. The space center is located 40 kilometers northwest of Cayenne, Guiana's capital.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelagic country, relies heavily on satellites for its telecommunications links. All Indonesia's current satellites were made by Hughes Space Communications of the United States.

The relation between Indonesia and Hughes started in 1975 when the company began the Palapa-A satellite program after the government awarded contracts for the construction of two spacecrafts, and control and earth stations.

The Palapa-A was the HS-333 type with 12 transponders.

The Palapa-B satellite and the HS-376 model have 24 transponders. The Palapa-C, the third generation of Indonesia's satellite system, is superior to the earlier Palapa-A and Palapa- B series in terms of coverage, power and flexibility. Each of the Palapa-C spacecrafts, versions of the HS-601 model of body- stabilized satellite, has 34 transponders, including 24 C-band, six extended C-band and four Ku-band.

The Palapa-C, with a lifespan of about 14 years, plus two years in inclined orbit, will cover not only Indonesia but also Southeast Asia, parts of China, India and Japan. With the Pacific Rim as its center, Palapa-C satellites' coverage extends westward from Iran to Southeast Russia and southward to eastern Australia and New Zealand.

Satelindo is the owner and operator of the Palapa C-1 and C-2 satellites which have been prepared to replace the Palapa-B generation of satellites.

The Palapa-C1 satellite, launched in late January from Cape Canaveral, the United States, is now operating from its orbit at 113 degrees east longitude. Most of Palapa-C1's transponders have been leased by both domestic and overseas television broadcasters.

The overseas users include the American news channel CNN, the ESPN sports station, and entertainment networks HBO, Viacom and Discovery, Singapore's Asia Business News, NBC Asia, Star TV, Canal France International and Turner Far East Asia. Other users include Australia, Brunei, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines.

Due to an anomaly on Palapa-C1's battery discharge control, the Palapa-C2 will replace the Palapa-C1 satellite at the 113 degrees east longitude, while Palapa-C1 will be put at 150.0 degrees east longitude. The replacement is necessary because Satelindo is committed to providing the best services and qualified transmissions.

In the meantime, Satelindo has already secured a number of lessees which will use transponders of the Palapa-C2. However, most of Palapa-C2 transponders are still available for lease.

Satelindo's president, Iwa Sewaka, said that the state television network, Televisi Republik Indonesia (TVRI), and the country's five private television networks, RCTI, SCTV, TPI, Indosiar and ANteve, are also on the list of renters.

A satellite is a celestial, or manmade object that orbits the earth or any other planet. The moon is the earth's only natural satellite.

Artificial or manmade satellites are spacecrafts launched and put into orbit to do all sorts of useful things to help people on Earth. Just as each planet moves around the sun in a path called an orbit, an artificial satellite also has its orbit.

An earth orbit is usually identified by its inclination with respect to Earth's equator, its apogee (point of the greatest distance from earth) and its perigee (the nearest point to earth).

A communications satellite occupies a given longitudinal point above the equator at an altitude of about 36,000 kilometers. The satellite's orbital speed must reach 6,875 mph.

In a sequence of certain steps, the launch vehicle and the satellite's own on-board motor place the satellite into geosynchronous orbit above the Earth or any other designated planetary body. The launcher typically has more than one stage of propulsion devices.

After being launched, a satellite like the Palapa-C2 needs about 40 days to start its operational period.

From its position above the equator, a satellite can relay signals to a third of the globe. Within that area, signal coverage is as impartial and universal as sunlight, and equally unaffected by mountains, oceans or national borders. Unlike ground-based systems, neither geographic nor political barriers impede the free flow of information via satellite.

One of the most important parts of a satellite is the transponder. This is an electronic device which includes a traveling wave tube or solid-state power amplifier, used to both transmit and receive radio signals on command at different specific frequencies. A communications satellite, like the Palapa-C series, may contain dozens of transponders.

Indonesia became the first nation in Asia to operate a domestic communications satellite. Indonesia is currently ranked third in the world for operating such a satellite system, after the U.S. and Canada.

Each transponder in other regional satellites are currently leased at between US$1.6 million and $3 million per year for one C-band transponder and at between $4 million and $5 million for a Ku-band transponder.

Besides the Palapa-C series as regional satellites in the Asia Pacific region, there are also Intelsat, AsiaSat, Apstar and Panamsat, Optus and JCsat satellites. So far, these names are the major players in the regional market for broadcasting.

In the 1995 to 2005 period there will be about 40 satellites launched for replacement and more than 50 others for extension of the existing systems in the area.

By early next year, there will be about 1,680 communications satellite transponders available in the Asia-Pacific region. The number of transponders, provided for video and telecommunications, will reach 2,360 in the following three years.

Meanwhile, the load factor of each satellite provider in the region reached 90 percent in 1995, with lower figures for several operators due to higher leasing fees.

The margin between transponder demand and supply next year will range from 26 percent to 32 percent. The demand for transponders is estimated to increase in the year 2000, when more users will look for additional transponders and use more efficient digital compressions. Indonesia's Palapa-B and C satellites will offer about 134 transponders in the year 2000.

Satelindo, which was set up in 1993, is one of the private companies in Indonesia that has been licensed by the government to run satellite telecommunications services.

Also, Satelindo has the license to run a digital cellular system: the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). Since the launch of its GSM marketing in October 1994, the company currently has 150,000 GSM subscribers and plans to have marketed 850,000 cellular phone lines by 1998.

Satelindo is owned 22.5 percent by the state-owned domestic telecommunications company PT Telkom, 7.5 percent by the state- owned international telecommunications company PT Indosat, 45 percent by PT Bimagraha Telekomindo and 25 percent by DeTeMobil of Germany.

Satelindo has now extended its international roaming facilities to Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Australia and Germany. It will soon have the ability to roam 40 countries around the world.

Since Satelindo's mission is to nurture the development of telecommunications services by offering end-users "one-stop- shopping", the company also offers international direct dialing (IDD) using the 008 access code, calling card, home country direct and toll-free numbers for IDD. Beyond that, the company also plans to launch integrated digital network services.