Indonesia’s Indosat is currently in talks with several global satellite operators over the joint development of the 150.5E orbital slot, where the Palapa-E satellite will be positioned.
Indosat CEO Alexander Rusli told SatelliteFinance that his…
Indonesia’s Indosat is currently in talks with several global satellite operators over the joint development of the 150.5E orbital slot, where the Palapa-E satellite will be positioned.
Indosat CEO Alexander Rusli told SatelliteFinance that his company is looking to partner with a global operator “to optimise the satellite business”.
While he declined to disclose details of the discussions, which are ongoing, Rusli confirmed that Japanese satellite operator Sky Perfect JSAT was “one of the potential partners to launch Palapa-E at the 150.5E orbital slot”.
In November last year, reports claimed that Indosat had signed an MoU with JSAT for a joint satellite project. Shortly after, the Japanese operator issued a statement saying that it was indeed “discussing the model of cooperation with Indosat to expand the satellite business in Asia”. But it added at the time that it had “not made any decision on this matter yet”.
Palapa-E is being constructed by Orbital Sciences and is due to be launched in 2016. Based on Orbital’s GEOStar-2 platform, the new Ku-band spacecraft will replace Palapa-C2 at 150.5E. C2 has been positioned in the slot since 1996 and is therefore continuing to operate beyond its expected lifetime. Indosat also operates Thales Alenia Space built Palapa-D at 113E.
Rusli also told SatelliteFinance that although he views Indosat’s satellite business as a non-strategic asset, he is not considering spinning it off like KT Corp did with KT Sat.
He pointed to the benefits of Indosat’s satellite operations in helping the company to fulfil its pledge to cover as much as of the country as possible, including the most rural parts of the archipelago. Rusli added that there was great growth potential in Indonesia for both DTH and satellite broadband services.
