Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) has been negotiating with Singapore Telecom (SingTel) to establish a joint venture (JV) in order to launch a communications satellite, according to industry sources. This would be the second time the two companies teamed up after they cooperated to launch the satellite ST-1 in August 1998. CHT''s board of directors will discuss the project at a meeting scheduled for late August.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) does not assign satellite orbits to Taiwan because Taiwan is not a member of the organization, the sources noted. Therefore, CHT will need to partner with an ITU member, such as SingTel, to complete the project, the sources pointed out. If both companies settle on the JV, the satellite is expected to be launched in 2012 in time to replace ST-1 which will reach the end of its service life in 2013, the sources indicated.

ST-1 carries 14 medium-power C-band transponders, each with 36MHz bandwidth, mainly for use in DTH (direct to home) digital TV broadcasting, VSAT (very small aperture terminal) and uplink/downlink cable TV broadcast relays, as well as 16 high-power Ku-band transponders each with 54MHz bandwidth, the sources noted.

For the new satellite, SingTel is inclined to select only Ku-band transponders whereas CHT would prefer both C-band and Ku-band, the sources pointed out. Thus, there will be more Ku-band transponders and fewer C-band ones as compared with ST-1 if the project goes ahead, the sources indicated.

In other news, CHT will hold an open bid in early September to procure its first batch of VDSL2 equipment, with D-Link, ZyXEL Communications, Asustek Computer and Alcatel-Lucent the four competitors, according to industry sources. CHT will also decide on a supplier of ROADMs (reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers) from several candidates including Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco in late October, the sources added. CHT will procure more than 100,000 STBs (set-top boxes) for its MOD (multimedia on demand) platform in late 2007 or early 2008 and 700,000 additional VDSL2 units in 2008, the sources said.


Source: digitimes

Tags:SingTel | ITU | VSAT | Cable