Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC) brought their team to IBC2019, and Andrey Kirillovich, Director of Integration and Products was available to share RSCC's latest information. Andrey's tenure in the industry totals almost 20 years.
His job capacity involves working with satellite operators and service providers on the ground and space segments. His responsibilities as head of integration services and turnkey projects is business development in new geographical regions (Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Asia-Pac); and in international vertical markets (cellular backhaul, enterprise, government, mobility and consumer broadband.
Andrey Kirillovich
RSCC brings an impressive amount of expertise to customers — the company is more than 50 years old, and they have a good team of professionals; i.e. RSCC has highly specialized technical engineers that can explain to the customers the benefits of the satellite technology and how to implement the technology for the client's different applications.
And with RSCC's 11 satellites positioned on the GEO arc from 14 degrees W to 145 degrees E, it makes RSCC a good option for both primary and backup network solutions in the remote areas all around the world. They provide various types of communications and broadcasting applications in different frequency bands such as L-, C-, Ku- and Ka-band.
Why does Andrey attend IBC, is it a worthwhile exercise? He responded, yes, IBC is one of the main industry events for RSCC because, as Andrey said, it is a great place to meet with all of their customers from EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), which results in generating a lot of qualified leads, and it’s a good opportunity to present new services, pricing, and more. IBC is a good place to exchange ideas, and it’s a great way to convert challenges into opportunities.
While RSCC may not necessarily garner new customers at IBC, Andrey speculates that this event usually generates massive expansions of existing contracts.
RSCC also continues to develop its key products, such as proprietary managed maritime VSAT service, which now serves more than 300 ships in the seas and oceans around Europe, Russia, Middle East, Asia and Latin America. They are currently expanding their service offering to smaller vessels, as current development of maritime RF allows to install satellite solutions even on small fishing boats (which actually now is a majority of customers.)
Also, Andrey said they are enhancing their regional reach of their mobility network. Customers require broader coverage than just the Russian area. They acknowledge that a certain gaps exist, so partnership options with other satellite operators are being considered for worldwide coverage.
Another “hot” area for them now is TV/Video distribution. Traditionally, they do linear TV distribution, but they are also looking into non-linear distribution options. They are working together with content owners and different distribution platforms in order to increase penetration within the region by offering a hybrid solution.
When Andrey was asked what’s happening to RSCC five years from now? He had a list of items beginning with:
- Enhance the share of vertically integrated services providing them with the opportunity for their satellites to be an integral part of the next generation of networks, including 5G ecosystem;
- Replicate their success with their domestic TV distribution platform to other regions;
- Expand their proprietary VSAT network;
- Providing end-to-end services for mobility customers on land in the air and sea globally;
- Planning a non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite constellation with launch of 4 satellites into a highly elliptical orbital (HEO) in order to enhance connectivity to maritime, aero and terrestrial domains.
Andrey shared an interesting 'twist' regarding his customers' expertise. As he said, they are open to cooperation and have a lot of examples of customers coming to them with a deep knowledge of the market, but not of the technology. So the customer can educate RSCC about the market and then RSCC is in turn educating them about the technology — they educate each other, making the situation a mutual benefit — an experience exchange turning into a successful business case. That is how they developed satellite consumer broadband service, maritime VSAT and TV distribution platforms. They put a lot of effort into educating the customer, and there is a high level of trust between RSCC and their clients, hence they tend to have long-term partnerships helping them to explore new regions and verticals together.
