[Via Satellite 09-15-2016] Satellite operators in Latin America\u2019s three largest economies are hopeful that economic weakness in the region will pass in the near future. New presidents in Brazil and Argentina, and policy changes in Argentina and Mexico specifically, are having salient impacts on the countries\u2019 telecommunications sectors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a really tough year for us,\u201d Gustavo Silbert, president of Brazil-based Embratel Star One<\/strong>, said Sept. 12 at World Satellite Business Week in Paris, France. \u201cInflation is around 10 percent, so it is very, very bad. Unemployment is around 11 percent. Those are the bad things that happened, but what we see now is a kind of turning point; we have a new government with a lot of expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n Brazil impeached its president, Dilma Rousseff, this August after nearly a yearlong process. The impeachment, combined with the Zika crisis and ongoing market challenges from factors like the weak state of the oil and gas market, have further stressed the country\u2019s economy. Silbert said Star One typically makes purchases in U.S. dollars but sells in Brazilian reals, making currency depreciation another challenge. Still, he said the company has had some notable highlights, particularly with the recent Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. He said Star One provided 25 dedicated channels for the Olympics in full HD, as well as some 4K, and made content accessible to \u201cevery screen,\u201d including using internet to reach multiple devices.<\/p>\n In Argentina, national satellite operator Empresa Argentina de Soluciones Satelitales Sociedad Anonima <\/strong>(ARSAT) said inflation has stalled out the economy, but with the country\u2019s renewed interest in international friendships, moods are upbeat for near-term turnaround.<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly the fact that inflation reached 20, perhaps 30 percent or more in the past years created stagflation of the economy, and we are in the battle to control inflation,\u201d said Henoch Aguiar, vice president of ARSAT. \u201cWe think in the next months we will see that and expect good movements of the economy for the next year.\u201d<\/p>\n Aguiar added that while the national economy has struggled, satellite in particular has grown at an appreciable rate. In an accompanying presentation, he said 65 percent of ARSAT 1, the operator\u2019s first satellite, which launched in 2014, is already contracted. The satellite has a 14 percent backlog, 10 percent more capacity sales are forecasted for next year, and another 10 percent are not being leased commercially. ARSAT 2, launched in 2015, is 35 percent utilized, with a 25 percent backlog and future forecasted sales of 30 percent within the next one to two years. Like its predecessor, 10 percent of the satellite is also not available for commercial lease.<\/p>\n In a step change from the past, Aguiar said the Argentine government is planning to shed some of its protectionist policies in favor of letting international satellite operators sell capacity in the country. Even among differing political parties, he said this mindset remains the same: \u201call of them share one idea \u2014 Argentina must be open to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Aguiar said the recession in Argentina has impacted data services more so than broadcast television, with entertainment apparently carrying more value during hard times. Silbert said broadcasting is down in Brazil, though he added Star One\u2019s 70 degrees west orbital location has amounted to a \u201chot spot\u201d for the operator as an estimated 20 million receive-only C-band television dishes are pointed at the operator\u2019s satellites at this position. That equates to almost 40 percent of houses in the country, he said.<\/p>\n Mexico\u2019s Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes\u2019 <\/strong>(SCT) Mexsat Program, though part of the government, is also feeling economic pressures as it tries to finance a replacement for the Centenario satellite destroyed in a 2015 Proton failure. Omar Charfen Tommasi, Mexsat program director at SCT Mexico, while stressing that Mexsat does not have a profit motive, said the organization lost replacement satellite money because of Mexico\u2019s financial situation.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the gas and oil prices going down and with a sequestration process, we have budget constraints and we need to get creative in carving the correct financial solutions for our needs. That is the case with the new satellite we are planning to buy to provide backup to the Morelos 3 satellite due to the launch failure that we had last year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Centenario was the second of a would-be trio of satellites Mexico\u2019s SCT had planned for national communications services and was identical to the third satellite, Morelos 3. The satellites were to serve as backups for each other. Tommasi said the SCT still has a requirement for three spacecraft to meet needs in fields such as national security, e-learning, and telemedicine.<\/p>\n \u201cFor Mexico Connectado, we have 100,000 sites connected. Only 30 percent of those are connected via satellite, but we want to increase that number. We want to reach 200,000 sites in the next two years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n According to Tommasi, the SCT did recover the insurance amount of the lost satellite, but this money \u201cwent into the Mexican treasury and was used for other priorities.\u201d He said SCT has been engaged in performing a market study on getting a replacement satellite and hopes to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to satellite manufacturers by the end of this year.<\/p>\n Tommasi said Mexico\u2019s commercial telecommunications sector has grown robustly over the past four years thanks to legislative changes that have introduced competition. He said prices have fallen for connectivity by 23.2 percent over the last three years, and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in telecommunications is now second only to oil and gas. The SCT estimates Mexico has 54 internet users for every 100 residents, up from 21 out of 100 prior to 2012 reforms. SCT is expanding access to connectivity further now that the Mexican constitution deems connectivity to be a human right for its citizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [Via Satellite 09-15-2016] Satellite operators in Latin America\u2019s three largest economies are hopeful that economic weakness in the region will pass in the near future. New presidents in Brazil and Argentina, and policy changes in Argentina and Mexico specifically, are having salient impacts on the countries\u2019 telecommunications sectors. \u201cIt is a really tough year for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}