BayCity becomes exclusive NZ Ipstar operator

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:58

Your IT - Home IT

BayCity Communications, a new subsidiary of the BayCity Group, has been appointed the exclusive national service operator (NSO) for Ipstar broadband satellite services in  New Zealand.

BayCity Communications will be responsible for the wholesale supply of all Ipstar products and services, including broadband Internet access, bandwidth, user terminals and other valued added services such as VoIP, VOD, and  IPTV. Ipstar New Zealand, the local subsidiary of the owner of the Ipstar satellite, Shin Satellite of Thailand, will continue to operate the Ipstar gateway in Auckland.

BayCity has committed to purchase a minimum of $NZ100m of Ipstar bandwidth and user terminals  over the 12 years of the contract. The deal requires BayCity to deploy  60,000 Ipstar user terminals within five years and use the full capacity of Ipstar bandwidth over New Zealand within four years. According to Ipstar, the New Zealand market for it services includes over 125,000 households, of which 70,000 are business and farming potential users who require broadband for managing their day-to-day businesses.

BayCity’s rural services arm, Farmside Limited, has been deploying Ipstar services since 2004. According to Ipstar, Farmside is the leading provider of Ipstar satellite broadband services in New Zealand and has received both national and international attention for its success in bringing broadband access to rural communities.

The Ipstar satellite, launched in August 2005,  is the world's largest commercial satellite. It provides broadband services to both enterprises and consumers throughout 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. It has a total data throughput capacity of over 45Gbps and is designed to provide users with data speeds of up to 4Mbps on the forward link and 2Mbps on the return link. It has seven on-board antennas that have been configured to create 112 spot and regional beams in the Ku and Ka bands.