Supernet Enhances its VSAT Network Capacity

Pakistani ISP and satellite service provider Supernet recently inked a capacity deal with SES World Skies for Ku-band transponder capacity on the NSS-6 satellite to support a large VSAT network for Pakistan’s corporate enterprise market, reported Satellite TODAY, citing Supernet CEO Imran Malik.

Malik while speaking with Satellite Today said that the SES World Skies capacity would enable Supernet to streamline its operations.

“We have physically split our two VSAT business segments – broadband Internet and enterprise networks – so that all of our enterprise VSAT customers are now being supported by the Ku-band capacity on the NSS-6 satellite,” he said.

According to information that we have got from Supernet, it looks that this split in both the segments is made while keeping long-term business strategy in mind.

This current capacity from NSS-6 Satellite is in addition to a partnership that company signed in 2010 with YahSat to provide the Ka-band YahClick service in Pakistan.

We want to use our existing broadband VSAT service to develop customers for our YahClick service. Thus we intend to be very aggressive with our broadband Internet service. Ku-band capacity is very hard to find in our region.

We can definitely use more and are actively looking for FSS Ku-band capacity.

Supernet has seen a significant growth in demand for VSAT services in Pakistan in the last few years. While Malik believes that 2011 will be a slightly slower year compared to previous years, he is confident that the GSM backhaul market will see good growth in the long term.

In 2011, our major growth driver will still be GSM backhaul. I see a shift from the fully loaded SCPC circuits to lightly loaded, shared VSAT sites. The Universal Service Fund can also play an important role in fueling the demand for VSATs.

We are looking at becoming a service provider in our neighboring markets as well, but in Pakistan, we see the state of the economy and the extended crisis in governance as a major challenge to growth. Competition will push profitability downwards.

The best part is that, by virtue, a few of our long-term contracts from 2010 are virtually guaranteed for the next three years, said Mr. Malik.