Q&A Intelsat OPT French Polynesia have made a long-term commitment with us on a future satellite ­ the IS-18 satellite that is in the factory right now. A focus on the long-term Since 1965, Intelsat have been providing the world with invaluable satellite communications. Theirs was the first global satellite communications network and their experience is unparalleled. So how is this giant of the communications industry faring in these unstable economic times and how is business in the Asian region and beyond? Helen Jameson spoke to Stephen Spengler, Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing for Intelsat. Question: How is business for Intelsat in the Asian region at present? Are you beginning to see any changes in the market due to the global economic problems? If so, what are they? Stephen Spengler: Overall, business is good in the Asia-Pacific. It remains a steady and strong region for us. We have a pretty diversified customer base in Asia across media and telecom and we also have some government customers too. The region continues to be a contributor to our business success and growth. In terms of looking at the economy, we have not seen a discernable impact on our business. There is still robust demand globally and in all regions. A lot of what we do involves mission critical communications for governments, corporate networks, broadcasters and that type of thing, and this part of the business is pretty strong. We see the industry as being pretty much recessionresistant. That is something we have seen and that is generally believed because so much of what we do is about critical communications and they are absolute requirement for company infrastructure, for video communications infrastructure and for government applications. These services have to continue in whatever economic climate we find ourselves in, so that certainly helps. For Intelsat, we believe that our global footprint and the diversity of customers that we have across our entire fleet, the diversity of regions that we operate in, really help us when economic times are tough. It's not to say that we have not seen variability in particular markets - we have. But when we look at the company as a whole, business has held up reasonably well. Question: Which services are most in demand in the region? Stephen Spengler: Again, I would have to say that it is across our entire portfolio of services. We have a strong base for television distribution in the region, and we have just added a few new programmes so there has been some expansion in that area. We have just added some other customers to our network services - our telecom type services. 30 w w w.satellite-evolution.com | March/April 2009 intelsat.p65 30 13/03/2009, 18:12