Andrew Jordan
Chief Executive Officer
SAT-GE


Andrew Jordan is President and CEO of SAT-GE and has more than 20 years of experience in the management and development of new markets and products throughout Asia. He has a degree in Chinese from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England. Andrew has put his studies to good use, as his entire career has focused on the Asia Pacific region working with most of the major broadcasters and telecommunications operators in the Asia Pacific and globally. His experience includes 18 years in executive management roles in the Asia Pacific satellite industry.

SatMagazine
GE has a long history within the satellite industry, but the sale of shares back to SES looked like the end of its interests. However, GE now appears to have retained a foothold in our industry with SAT-GE. Can you explain the motivation for this latest move?

Andrew Jordan
SAT-GE is a relatively new business for GE. After a long history dating back to the mid 1980s, that saw the acquisition of Americom from RCA, GE entered into a transaction with SES in 2007 worth over $1.6bn in which SES bought back shares from GE in return for cash, assets and investments in other satellite operators.

The assets in this transaction included Satlynx (a satellite managed network services business) and a satellite (AMC-23). In April 2007, these disparate parts were brought together as GE International Holdings. The management team of Satlynx immediately began the creation of a new company to manage the satellite, and to grow GE’s interests as a satellite operator. Hence, SAT-GE was born and the satellite was renamed to GE-23.

SatMagazine
What attracted you to SAT-GE?

Andrew Jordan
Certainly the opportunity to be in on the ground at the beginning of a start-up operation under a successful global business was very compelling. To lead a small entrepreneurial team backed-up by the experience of the best in business has opened many opportunities to succeed. In less than a year we established offices in Singapore and Washington D.C., created a strong brand and significant market awareness for SAT-GE and GE-23. When GE-23 was transferred, its inventory of transponder capacity was only about 20 percent occupied. We have more than doubled this since its launch in 2005, a huge achievement from a first-class team.

SatMagazine
Why is GE-23 such an interesting satellite?

Andrew Jordan>
GE-23 is a unique satellite, to be certain; positioned at 172 degrees East, it sits over the Pacific Ocean and has coverage from the West Coast of the USA across the Pacific into Asia, and covers Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. It is the ideal platform for commercial, governmental, and military applications such as remote site connectivity via VSAT, high bandwidth trunking, and communications-on-the-move to vehicles in the air, on the water, or on land. Despite its strengths in primary, or secondary long distance telecommunications, GE-23 has capacity for TV and video distribution that is growing in importance with the advent of HD in the Asia-Pacific region.

SatMagazine
What are you doing to promote the use of GE-23 for TV and video distribution?

Andrew Jordan
SAT-GE has recently begun a collaboration effort with Arqiva on a new state-of-the-art platform that will enable broadcasters to distribute and contribute HD and Standard Definition (SD) channels to Asian-Pacific broadcasters and cable head-ends.

From Arqiva’s Digital Media Centre and teleport facilities in Los Angeles the new HD platform is uplinked to GE-23 and can deliver MPEG-4 encoded streams in a flexible range of bit rates. The complete solution is a very cost-effective way for content providers to reach their audiences across Asia. The uplink uses high order, DVB-S2 8PSK modulation for maximum bandwidth efficiency, and a range of services can be put together to complete the perfect solution such as; backhaul, standards conversion, local connections and remote cable head end antenna placement.

SatMagazine
How do you see the development of HD TV taking off in the Asia-Pacific market?

Andrew Jordan
We have seen HD programming capture the imagination of audiences in the United States and in European markets such as the United Kingdom; the same experience is starting to happen in Asia. Currently, the vast bulk of HD content is being produced in the U.S., which is significantly enhancing the viewer experience with clear, high quality pictures. Asia, as we know, is not one homogenous market, and is in varying stages of development. Some markets such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong have already established various HD services.

Others are in the process of introducing them to consumers. Distribution is through a variety of means: DTH, cable, IPTV and, terrestrial, depending on individual markets. Now we are beginning to notice affiliates demanding HD 16 x 9 format content from their Asia based content providers, and this will help drive HD services across Asia.

SatMagazine
Which Asian markets do you see leading the development of HD?

Andrew Jordan
Despite the varying stages of HD development in each country’s markets, we are realizing a growing demand for the distribution of content to Asian DTH platforms.

The cable companies require HD content across the whole of Asia. The most advanced, to date, are Japan and South Korea, followed by Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Of particular interest is the Beijing Olympics, which will be the first Olympic games to be broadcast solely in HD.

This means SD viewers will receive a center cut picture, reformatted to 4 x 3, and therefore losing some of the action. HD viewers, on the other hand, will receive spectacularly sharp 16 x 9 pictures that will provide a tremendous viewing experience. The cost of HD sets has come down to the price point where many people will upgrade, just to watch the Olympics.

And if they don’t buy their HD set before the Olympics, the 4:3 viewing experience may be the motivation to upgrade, thus creating a surge in HD manufacturing, and demand for more HD programming.

SatMagazine
What new technologies do you think will move the industry toward the next phase?

Andrew Jordan
Clearly the mobility markets are growing at a tremendous pace. There has been a proliferation of transportable and mobile antenna systems developed over recent months, and these are finally finding their way to the users of mobility applications.

The military markets are usually at the forefront of adoption of new technologies and this is evidently the case in the uptake of COTM and UAV technologies. It will be interesting to see how the military sector will use VSAT technology in cellular configurations as the volume of Ka capacity increases, enabling very high throughputs in small focused, but overlapping, footprints.

SatMagazine
Where do you see the opportunities for the future of the satellite industry?

Andrew Jordan
They seem clearly defined in places where either (a) there is a large population to address with a simultaneous message (TV being the classic application), or (b) where wired and wireless terrestrial are not available and are not practical. In the case of “addressing the unconnected”, the drivers for this are, as always; extremely remote locations with small populations; reaching temporary locations where business is conducted in remote locations but only for fixed periods; and of course connecting people who are on the move.

The key markets that will enjoy the technology include military, aeronautical and maritime. With TV, the economics of addressing a population with a satellite are much better than the terrestrial alternative.

There will always be an underserved minority that are too far from a central office, or even beyond terrestrial trunking. GE-23 on the other hand, is very much a hybrid where we can serve the unconnected, address the mass market, and still deliver to remote areas where traditional BSS operators simply are unable to make the connection. This is a most interesting time to be active in the Asia-Pacific market.