Peter Griffin: Thai satellite offers multitide of internet possibilities

It's a big old bird, bigger than a double-decker bus and weighing in at 6.7 tonnes. It's the largest satellite destined to be put into space so far, and when it's floating in orbit, its strong beam will spread over New Zealand as well as most of Asia.

When Thai company Shin Satellite's IPStar is switched on, it will bring high-speed internet services to the most far-flung parts of New Zealand, those beyond the reach of Telecom's network.

The small internet provider Iconz, which won the Government's Project Probe tender to run the service, and Timaru-based Bay City will offer the rural services.

The launch was supposed to happen a year ago, but when you've sunk US$350 million ($518.4 million) into a state-of-the-art satellite, you want to take your time and get it right.

Broadcast Communications already runs rural wireless broadband services that are resold by the likes of Telecom. But they haven't exactly been going gangbusters. They're too expensive for conservative farmers.

IPStar will be going even farther beyond the pale, to the most outlying regions. That's good news for far-flung communities, schools and businesses.

But it seems there is also an opportunity to hit the mainstream with some alternative entertainment and high-speed internet services, which could also give us some real choice in the pay TV area. It could take on Sky and Telecom in one swoop of a satellite beam.

I want to see IPStar deliver across New Zealand a 512-kilobit-per-second internet connection, which is obviously much faster on the download side than the return path.

I can live with a 20-gigabyte monthly cap after which my surfing speed is throttled back to near dial-up speed. I want half a dozen internet TV channels, maybe CNN and some channels showing sports, movies and TV shows - I'm not too fussy. I want to be able to pay for and download to my computer a movie of my choice, chosen from an extensive catalogue of titles. This should not eat into my 20-gigabyte download cap.

I want an internet telephony service that lets me make cheap phone calls via satellite using my computer or regular phone. And I want a digital satellite radio service I can pick up at home or in the car. Something along the lines of the hugely successful XM Radio (xmradio.com) satellite radio network in the United States. This should provide me with all sorts of channels I can't get through regular analog radio.

There you have it, a nice package that I'm willing to pay about $100 a month for. Not much to ask for.

Somehow I don't think it's going to happen. The cost of the satellite dish and equipment needed to access IPStar's service will make it too expensive for the residential market. And a player like Telecom or TelstraClear would have to climb on board to bring satellite to the masses. They're not going to willingly cannibalise their existing services.

Most important of all, only 3 per cent of the 40 gigabits per second of the capacity on IPStar will be devoted to New Zealand. The rest will go to China, Australia, Thailand and a list of other countries.

Sadly, IPStar won't mean much to us city dwellers. But the IPStar satellite has been designed to provide high-speed internet access in competition with existing cable and DSL services. It will be larger countries such as China and Thailand that will be able to make those economics work.

So Sky TV or Telecom won't be getting too nervous about IPStar.

But look what the progressive Shin is doing in Thailand - satellite TV on-demand services supplied via the internet. Shin is getting into entertainment services in a big way with a movie-on-demand service and My Theatre, which will let villages watch movies, listen to music, play karaoke in small, ad hoc theatres. Another service called IPTV will stream broadcast TV over the internet, which IPStar subscribers will be able to pick up free.

At the moment the IPStar satellite appears to be sitting in a hangar in French Guiana waiting to blast off with the Ariane-5 rocket. A launch date earlier this week was postponed when there was a problem with ground equipment.

That's the thing about satellites, it's a risky business getting them into space. If the IPStar satellite ends up scattered in fragments over the Pacific, IPStar can kiss its business plan goodbye and our far-flung farmers can forget about finally getting high-speed internet.

I love satellites.

There's nothing better than looking up at the night sky and catching sight of a pinprick of light heading overhead on a determined path. The famed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke imagined a time in the not-too-distant future when every village on the face of the earth has its own satellite.

I hope he's right, because satellites get around the nightmare of having to build a communications infrastructure, to lay cables and dig trenches.

For New Zealand, which has only one complete telecoms network, satellites hold much promise. New Zealand has its satellite positions reserved, and there's even a local group of businessmen looking into launching their own satellite.

It would be a bold move for a small country. And all we need now is a couple of hundred million dollars to make it happen.