Some of the issues covered during the recent CASBAA Satellite Industry Forum 2008 in Singapore included: satellite spectrum management, market consolidation, government, military technology developments, capacity provision, as well as Asia’s seemingly unflagging demand for satellite services. Some 300, top-level executives from the world of satellite and government participated in the CASBAA Forum to discuss the future for satellite systems, as well as the latest challenges in Asia. The Forum was keynoted by global operators David McGlade, CEO of Intelsat, and Dan Goldberg, CEO of Telesat, providing both political and technical context for the market accelerators and the ways in which people consume content.
With an emphasis on the need for Asian markets to further open up, McGlade highlighted growth in China and India and the huge potential for Asian satellite services, which will only be partially served by the six new satellites to be launched in the region during the second half of this year. Even so, while the good news flow is dominant, ‘over-capacity could easily happen again’, as it did in the late 1990’s.
This was also emphasized by Goldberg who urged delegates to consider the threat of terrestrial competition and the need to be ‘more aggressive’ with national operators. He also added a global spin, saying there is ‘not enough competitive choice in terms of launch vehicles’ and stressed the need for new launch service providers to be encouraged.
The CASBAA Satellite Industry Forum program covered other aspects of including an examination of customer needs from the satellite operators with cost as a recurring theme. Laureen Ong, COO of News Corp’s STAR Group said ‘satellite services are our single largest infrastructural cost’ and stressed that ‘prohibitive prices’ could prevent the launch of new channels via satellite.
The CASBAA Satellite Industry Forum was concluded by a “CEO Wrap”, during which C-level executives were put on the spot on the ‘way forward’. The CEOs of Intelsat, SAT-GE, SES NEW SKIES, AsiaSat, Asia Broadcast Satellite, Telesat, and ACES International agreed that demand is up for satellite services in Asia, bringing enormous opportunities to pay-TV and DTH platforms. In the meantime, the demand for mobile voice remains phenomenal and there is no expected slow-down in growth. “Today’s debate on the future of satellite only highlighted that there are countless unknowns ‘Ahead of the Curve’,” said Simon Twiston Davies, CEO of CASBAA. “The Asia Pacific satellite industry needs to be vigilant when protecting its assets and imaginative when cooperating with customers. Business is looking good as far as we can see, but the real world will always impinge on shiny business plans.”
