Satellite Plus

05/09/2017

Kacific selects SpaceX to provide launch service

Kacific-1 will bring fast, cost-effective internet service to South East Asia and the Pacific

Port Vila, Vanuatu– 5 September 2017 – Kacific Broadband Satellites Group (Kacific) has selected SpaceX as the launch provider for its Kacific-1 satellite, which is being built by The Boeing Company.

Kacific-1 will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9, a two-stage orbit-class rocket designed from the ground-up for maximum reliability and reusability.

“SpaceX has a breadth of vision that appeals to us,” says Christian Patouraux, Kacific CEO. “The company is committed to changing the way people think about space and the possibilities it represents. Signing with SpaceX as our launch service provider is a major step towards delivering our own vision. We look forward to seeing Kacific-1 atop a Falcon 9 Rocket in 2019.”

“SpaceX is proud to partner with Kacific on the milestone launch of the company’s first satellite, Kacific-1.” said Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX. “We appreciate their confidence in our proven capabilities and look forward to delivering their satellite to orbit.”

In February 2017 Kacific placed an order with The Boeing Company for the Kacific-1 satellite. Based on the reliable 702 satellite platform, Kacific-1 is designed to deliver high speed broadband via 56 narrow Ka-band beams, with the most powerful signal level ever achieved in a commercial satellite in the South East Asia and Pacific regions.

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Kacific Broadband Satellites Group (Kacific) has selected SpaceX as the launch provider for its Kacific-1 satellite, which is being built by The Boeing Company.

29/08/2017

Beautiful wintery day to line it up!

14/08/2017

Warming up the dish since winter is here.

25/05/2017

Kiwi in Space! Congrats Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab has created history by successfully launching its Electron and propelling New Zealand a step closer to the multi-billion dollar space industry. - New Zealand Herald

20/03/2017

SATELLITE START-UP PROMISES ULTRA-FAST INTERNET TO REMOTE ASIA-PACIFIC, NZ LOCATIONS

The Pacific Islands, remote parts of rural New Zealand and poor but populous parts of eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are target markets for a new satellite-based project that its backers say will bring low-cost, ultra-fast broadband to areas that are too expensive to reach by cable.

The brainchild of Christian Patouraux, a Belgian-born, Sydney-based entrepreneur with a 22-year career in satellite projects, the Kacific Broadband Satellites initiative owes part of its success to the equity funding efforts of boutique Wellington investment and advisory firm, Caniwi Capital, which has helped raise more than US$20 million in equity for the US$147 million project.

Unusual in the satellite industry for being a start-up operation, Kacific is partnering with Asia's largest satellite player, Tokyo-based JSAT Corp. The pair have placed an order with Boeing Satellite Systems for shared use of a 'condominium' satellite using so-called high throughput technology, which delivers focused satellite beams to produce targeted, higher bandwidth broadband than older generations of satellite technology.

Kacific will offer services in the southern hemisphere, while JSAT will take northern hemisphere capacity.

"Kacific-1 is designed to deliver uncontended broadband throughput via 57 Ka-band narrow beams, each having a capacity up to 1.25Gbps, with the highest signal power ever achieved in the region," according to a statement from Caniwi. "The beams are selectively tailored to cover precise pockets of demand in a geographically dispersed footprint of 20 Pacific and South East Asian nations."

As a result, Kacific says it has sold capacity in 51 out of 57 beams so far, through take-or-pay contracts, with most beams exceeding 70 percent firm capacity bookings and several being almost saturated, for total future committed revenues of more than US$430 million. The project is funded by a mix of debt, equity and pre-payments.

The Kacific service could also produce a competitively priced alternative to terrestrial infrastructure of the sort that Crown Fibre Holdings is seeking in the $150 million second tranche of funding for the Rural Broadband Initiative, Caniwi believes.

While RBI2 bids are due within weeks, its specifications don't include satellite options and Kacific's forecasts include no RBI2 revenues, although Patouraux is confident there will be demand from New Zealand internet service providers seeking to feed high-speed broadband to the agricultural sector, where remote data collection and analysis is starting to revolutionise precision farming methods.

In an interview with BusinessDesk, Patouraux said he'd identified remote markets incapable of being efficiently served by terrestrial services as an untapped market and had identified the Pacific as ideal, being "extremely disparate, with difficult terrain, and lowly populated" but with good levels of education and literacy. Tourism operators were also seeking more cost-effective broadband for both their own operations and to offer guests less expensive wi-fi at resorts.

Further market research had identified large populations in parts of eastern Indonesia, particularly, where local entrepreneurs were likely to be able to establish local wireless-based ISPs if they had access to UFB via satellite. Service will also be offered to PNG, the Philippines, the Malaysian peninsula and parts of French Polynesia.

"The aim is to have power sufficient to deliver a high level of bandwidth with a very small terminal," said Patouraux, who likens the satellite beams to the equivalent of a cellphone tower, creating relatively low capital costs for a local user.

While Kacific will target rural New Zealand, remote parts of Australia are off the agenda, with the National Broadband Network initiative having a "totally different focus", Patouraux said. The few Pacific Island states where telephony is run by monopolies are also unattractive.

French INSEAD business school alumnus connections led him to Caniwi managing director James Gould, with the Wellington firm brokering a US$20 million contribution from a UK 'family office' specialising in infrastructure investments, along with equity contributions from Caniwi principals in their own right and high net worth investors in the UK, Canada and Australia.

http://www.sharechat.co.nz/article/d4f38d62/satellite-start-up-promises-ultra-fast-internet-to-remote-asia-pacific-nz-locations.html

The Pacific Islands are target markets for a new satellite-based project that its backers say will bring low-cost, ultra-fast broadband to areas that are too expensive to reach by cable

14/03/2017

Satellite start-up promises ultra-fast internet to remote Asia-Pacific and NZ locations.

The Pacific Islands, remote parts of rural New Zealand and poor but populous parts of eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are target markets for a new satellite-based project that its backers say will bring low-cost, ultra-fast broadband to areas that are too expensive to reach by cable.

The brainchild of Christian Patouraux, a Belgian-born, Sydney-based entrepreneur with a 22-year career in satellite projects, the Kacific Broadband Satellites initiative owes part of its success to the equity funding efforts of boutique Wellington investment and advisory firm, Caniwi Capital, which has helped raise more than US$20 million in equity for the US$147 million project.

Unusual in the satellite industry for being a start-up operation, Kacific is partnering with Asia's largest satellite player, Tokyo-based JSAT Corp. The pair have placed an order with Boeing Satellite Systems for shared use of a 'condominium' satellite using so-called high throughput technology, which delivers focused satellite beams to produce targeted, higher bandwidth broadband than older generations of satellite technology.

Kacific will offer services in the southern hemisphere, while JSAT will take northern hemisphere capacity.

"Kacific-1 is designed to deliver uncontended broadband throughput via 57 Ka-band narrow beams, each having a capacity up to 1.25Gbps, with the highest signal power ever achieved in the region," according to a statement from Caniwi. "The beams are selectively tailored to cover precise pockets of demand in a geographically dispersed footprint of 20 Pacific and South East Asian nations."

As a result, Kacific says it has sold capacity in 51 out of 57 beams so far, through take-or-pay contracts, with most beams exceeding 70 percent firm capacity bookings and several being almost saturated, for total future committed revenues of more than US$430 million. The project is funded by a mix of debt, equity and pre-payments.

The Kacific service could also produce a competitively priced alternative to terrestrial infrastructure of the sort that Crown Fibre Holdings is seeking in the $150 million second tranche of funding for the Rural Broadband Initiative, Caniwi believes.

While RBI2 bids are due within weeks, its specifications don't include satellite options and Kacific's forecasts include no RBI2 revenues, although Patouraux is confident there will be demand from New Zealand internet service providers seeking to feed high-speed broadband to the agricultural sector, where remote data collection and analysis is starting to revolutionise precision farming methods.

In an interview with BusinessDesk, Patouraux said he'd identified remote markets incapable of being efficiently served by terrestrial services as an untapped market and had identified the Pacific as ideal, being "extremely disparate, with difficult terrain, and lowly populated" but with good levels of education and literacy. Tourism operators were also seeking more cost-effective broadband for both their own operations and to offer guests less expensive wi-fi at resorts.

Further market research had identified large populations in parts of eastern Indonesia, particularly, where local entrepreneurs were likely to be able to establish local wireless-based ISPs if they had access to UFB via satellite. Service will also be offered to PNG, the Philippines, the Malaysian peninsula and parts of French Polynesia.

"The aim is to have power sufficient to deliver a high level of bandwidth with a very small terminal," said Patouraux, who likens the satellite beams to the equivalent of a cellphone tower, creating relatively low capital costs for a local user.

While Kacific will target rural New Zealand, remote parts of Australia are off the agenda, with the National Broadband Network initiative having a "totally different focus", Patouraux said. The few Pacific Island states where telephony is run by monopolies are also unattractive.

French INSEAD business school alumnus connections led him to Caniwi managing director James Gould, with the Wellington firm brokering a US$20 million contribution from a UK 'family office' specialising in infrastructure investments, along with equity contributions from Caniwi principals in their own right and high net worth investors in the UK, Canada and Australia.

https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/satellite-start-promises-ultra-fast-internet-remote-asia-pacific-nz-locations-b-200603

Kacific will offer services in the southern hemisphere, while JSAT will take northern hemisphere capacity.

08/03/2017

Beam will play an integral part in enabling youth with Broadband to have 'quality of life second to none' in small NZ towns.

The roll out of broadband in rural communities is saving small towns in New Zealand, according to the local government president.

Due to urbanisation, people are moving out of small rural communities to cities for work, putting the future of these towns in jeopardy.

"It's an increasing problem and if you look out into the next 40 years, as all of the reports say, then many small towns in New Zealand will struggle to survive," Lawrence Yule told TVNZ's Breakfast programme this morning.

The local government president said that local councils and mayors are trying to revitalise communities with the use of technology to attract youth to stay.

"So people in today's world can live anywhere and interact with the world. The house prizes are low, they have a great lifestyle and I think we take that for granted in some cases."

With the global trend of universities offering courses online, Mr Yule said that rural students will be able to study in the comfort of their own homes and have a "quality of life second to none".

"You will be able to learn from home, on the internet. Broadband is so important to New Zealand...I think if you want to live on the east coast of New Zealand for instance, by the sea, in a small rural community, you will have access to everything else that everybody else has in a large urban centre."

He hopes that towns will create commercial hubs with the roll out of broadband and will become places where youth are proud to live in.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/broadband-enabling-youth-have-quality-life-second-none-in-small-nz-towns

Lawrence Yule says the roll out of broadband will help save rural towns.

28/02/2017

Beam has some exciting news for Aotearoa!

A Singapore-based satellite operator has put in an order for a new satellite which aims to bring high speed broadband to unserviced and remote areas in the Pacific and South East Asia.

Already governments and telecommunications providers in three South East Asian countries and 11 Pacific Island countries have signed up for Kacific's services which are scheduled to come on line in 2019.

Kacific chief executive Christian Patoraux spoke with Koroi Hawkins who began by asking about the viability of running a satellite with such a huge footprint in the Pacific.

TRANSCRIPT

CHRISTIAN PATORAUX: The reason why footprint was an issue was because it was not necessarily economical to put an entire satellite over the Pacific. So you would have to put a satellite that would look at the Pacific region. Put capacity, most of its capacity on the Pacific region and as you know the Pacific region is not the most populous place. So it may be difficult to find a market for an entire satellite there. What we did is that we have a satellite that will straddle South East Asia and the Pacific in order to bring, to build a critical mass to justify the purchase of an entire satellite. So if you want the Pacific in this case benefits from the fact that we found enough market in South East Asia to also serve the Pacific. Not only that but, our satellite is only about half a satellite. The other half is used by the Japanese corporation Sky Perfect JSAT. So in that sense we did not have to put all the money to buy an entire satellite but about half of that.

KOROI HAWKINS: And the figures are quite steep. Maybe if you can run us through how much it is going to cost and how long? ( It is going to take to get up and running?)

CP: To build the satellite and to launch it, to insure it, to put in all the ground systems and so on and only for our about half of the satellite it is costing $US147 million that we have raised over the last three and a half years that our project has been in the making. In order to raise this money we had to show the finance industry that we have revenue that were already secured and to do this we find that all the contracts that were mentioned already with 15 different customers and that amounts to total revenue of $US434 million of secured revenue. Now in terms of timeline a satellite will have to live in space for at least 15 years. In our case the Boeing satellite is actually planning to live longer than that. But to live that long alone in space you have to take all the steps necessary during the construction. So it will take two and a half years to build it to test it, to make sure that the satellite is robust and has all the units and redundancy on board to deliver the remarkable service that it will deliver in the Pacific.

Mr Patoraux estimates the service would cost the average person in the Pacific five to ten US dollars per month for 3-4 GB of data at speeds of more than 100 megabits per second.

Mr Patoraux says telecommunications providers could be deliver the service via wifi with internet vouchers or through the local 3G or 4G mobile networks.

Given the early sales success in Asia-Pacific, Kacific is now expanding its model to other regions with plans for follow-on satellites.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/201834573/kacific-puts-in-order-for-new-asia-pacific-satellite

A Singapore-based satellite operator has put in an order for a new satellite which aims to bring high speed broadband to unserviced and remote areas in the Pacific and South East Asia.

25/02/2017

Beam is excited to hear Boeing saying, KACIFIC-1 is scheduled to launch in 2019! All systems go!!!

http://www.reuters.com/article/brief-boeing-says-jcsat-18-kacific-1-is-idUSFWN1G50GA

Boeing

20/02/2017

Kacific Places Order With Boeing for a High Throughput Satellite

Kacific Broadband Satellites Pte Ltd (Kacific) today announced that it has ordered its Kacific-1 satellite from The Boeing Company (Boeing) based on the 702 satellite platform. This condominium satellite will be shared with JCSAT-18, ordered by SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation.

Kacific closed a US$147 million financing round in late 2016 with a mix of equity, debt and customer prepayments which covers the purchase of the satellite, launch service, ground systems and all other project costs. To secure this funding, Kacific has signed 15 managed bandwidth wholesale agreements in 14 different countries for a total value of US$434 million.

Kacific-1 is designed to deliver uncontended broadband throughput via 57 Ka-band narrow beams, each having a capacity up to 1.25Gbps, with the highest signal power ever achieved in the region. The beams are selectively tailored to cover precise pockets of demand in a geographically dispersed footprint of 20 Pacific and South East Asian nations. Strategic positioning of the beams has enabled Kacific to sell capacity in 51 out of 57 beams so far, through take-or-pay contracts, with most beams exceeding 70 percent firm capacity bookings and several being almost saturated.
Kacific selected the Boeing 702 because it is a reliable High Throughput Satellite platform delivering strong economics and a consistent high-quality connectivity across all service beams.
“Boeing is pleased Kacific has chosen our flight-proven scalable 702 satellite for its next-generation broadband satellite service,” said Mark Spiwak, president of Boeing Satellite Systems International. “The capability and performance of the Boeing 702 satellite will enable Kacific to meet increasing demands for connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region, reaching new and underserved markets with reliable and cost-effective satellite internet services.”

“We do pure play broadband. We focus on direct-to-premise. We precisely place capacity where it is most needed,” said Christian Patouraux, Kacific CEO. “This will yield price points that will unleash internet participation and usage. With the launch of Kacific-1, in 2019, people in areas currently lacking affordable high speed internet will be able to access online education, healthcare and public services, and grow their local economies. Delivering internet speeds over 100 Mbps on low cost, small form factor terminals, will help connect the dots of South East Asia and the Pacific to the digital world.”
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170220005170/en/

Kacific Broadband Satellites Pte Ltd announces it has ordered its Kacific-1 satellite from The Boeing Company (Boeing) 702 satellite platform.

07/02/2017

Kacific “attracting global attention” says Nikkei Asian Review.

The global space industry was worth $335.3 billion in 2015, an increase of 21% over five years.

Two other companies looking to make use of communication satellites have also attracted global attention. Singapore-based startup Kacific plans to launch satellites to provide high-speed internet to the remote communities of the Pacific islands, Indonesia, the Philippines, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, while Bank Rakyat Indonesia operates a satellite to handle its 50 million accounts, a first among financial institutions.

Full story here...
http://asia.nikkei.com/magazine/20170126/On-the-Cover/The-final-frontier-is-now-the-next-place-of-business?page=2

TOKYO It was a sunny January morning at the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, the perfect day for a launch."3... 2... 1... 0."The countd

25/11/2016

New RMA standard for telco facilities.

Changes to the National Environmental Standard (NES) for Telecommunications Facilities will make it quicker and easier for New Zealanders to get connected to new and better communications technologies.

Communications Minister Amy Adams and Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith today announced the new NES for Telecommunications Facilities, under the Resource Management Act (RMA).

“New Zealanders’ uptake and appreciation of communications has never been higher. Broadband and mobile services are incredibly important in both community life and today’s economy. This Government has made a priority of removing obstacles to improve connectivity and to modernise and streamline processes,” Ms Adams says.

Dr Smith says the new NES for Telecommunications Facilities is part of the Government’s plans to improve the RMA and make it more practical and standardised.

“From 1 January 2017 network operators will no longer have to apply for resource consent from local authorities to install frequently deployed infrastructure such as small cell units, street cabinets, light pole antennas and cabling that meets the national standard. This national standard will save consumers and ratepayers millions of dollars and is part of our broader package of RMA reforms that take a more nationally consistent approach to environmental regulation,” Dr Smith says.

The new NES will make it easier and cheaper to install the infrastructure consumers need to access broadband under the Government’s Ultra-Fast Broadband Programme, Rural Broadband Initiative and 4G network deployment. It does not change the radio frequency exposure standards. All new telecommunications infrastructure will continue to need to comply with current standards referenced in the NES, and which are based on international best practice.

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-rma-standard-telco-facilities

Changes to the National Environmental Standard (NES) for Telecommunications Facilities will make it quicker and easier for New Zealanders to get connected to new and better communications technologies.