{"id":85491,"date":"2011-01-24T19:18:13","date_gmt":"2011-01-24T11:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/xtar-sees-opportunities-in-developing-military-business-despite-looming-budget-cuts\/"},"modified":"2011-01-24T19:18:13","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T11:18:13","slug":"xtar-sees-opportunities-in-developing-military-business-despite-looming-budget-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/xtar-sees-opportunities-in-developing-military-business-despite-looming-budget-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Xtar Sees Opportunities in Developing Military Business Despite Looming Budget Cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[01-24-11] While many commercial operators at the 2010 Commercial Satcom Users  Workshop are cautious and prepared for budget cuts that could have an  impact on revenues and future business, some executives have identified  growth opportunities in the next year. The launch of the third Wideband  Global Satcom (WGS) satellite, along with the planned launches of  several next-generation commercial satellites, has ushered in a new  broadband satellite era where Ka-band and X-band systems are giving  fresh capacity options to a bandwidth-hungry military. <br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Andrew Ruszkowski, vice president of global sales and marketing for <strong>Xtar<\/strong>,  spoke with Satellite News about the latest  developments from providers and customers as well as the sector\u2019s  confidence in the sustained and growing strength of military-commercial  satcom partnerships.<\/p>\n<h2>Satellite News: Do you see demand for commercial X-band continuing to  grow in the military sector next year despite upcoming budget cuts?<\/h2>\n<p>\n<strong>Ruszkowski: <\/strong>There\u2019s no doubt that any talk of  government budget cuts is going to be a concern for us. The government  is our sole customer, and given that we\u2019re X-band, we don\u2019t have the  option to fall back on the commercial or enterprise sectors. However, we  see opportunities for us this year to deliver on the value proposition  that Xtar has to offer. My confidence stems from the continued demand  for our services and technology from government and military customers  and the fact that the orders keep coming in. <\/p>\n<h2>\nSatellite News: Where do you see these opportunities in the government sector?<\/h2>\n<p>\n<strong>Ruszkowski:<\/strong> As the government runs out of cash  resources to refresh or expand their own space assets, Xtar can bring  frequency resources reserved for the government into use without the  government having to make large capital investments of their own. A good  example of this is what happened with the TSAT cancellation in 2009.  After its termination,&nbsp; commercial solutions rapidly began to fill the  gaps left by its cancellation, truly exemplifying&nbsp; the value commercial  operators can deliver with solutions that are already in place. I think  we\u2019ll continue to see that in the future.<\/p>\n<h2>\nSatellite News: In November, Xtar signed an X-band capacity deal with  Intelsat General to support military mobile manpacks. Do you think this  deal shows the diversity of X-band\u2019s application support?<\/h2>\n<p>\n<strong>Ruszkowski:<\/strong> The Intelsat deal serves as an example of  the kinds of applications that will be driving that demand. There are  several other applications besides manpacks that will continue this  push. This is an example of the diverse, flexible sales and marketing  strategy from commercial&nbsp; integrators to make our space segment as  easily accessible as possible for the government user. We find that  selling through value-added resellers like Intelsat General is one way  we can contribute to adding value to the government user.<\/p>\n<h2>\nSatellite News: How will the relationship between decision makers in the  military and commercial providers will progress in the near future?<\/h2>\n<p>\n<strong>Ruszkowski:<\/strong> At this point, commercial operators would  like to see an increasing willingness on the part of the government to  engage industry in a spectrum of new dialog. After all, our products and  services are basically determined by the government\u2019s requirements. The  military can sit by passively, or they can start engaging in more  informal talks, followed by more formalized RFIs, to see what they need.  The goal is to get to a contracted engagement, where there are  established commitments to spend money on specific capability. We can  deliver on their needs much faster if this happens.<\/p>\n<h2>\nSatellite News: Does the same scenario exist between government policy makers and commercial operators?<\/h2>\n<p>\n<strong>Ruszkowski:<\/strong> This year\u2019s new national space policy gives  both parties the tools to expand engagement. Commercial operators will  change the shape of their beams or the power of their satellites to meet  whatever requirements the military has. I\u2019m waiting to see if the  government is finally ready to start moving down that path in order to  follow through with the commitment that we see in the national space  policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[01-24-11] While many commercial operators at the 2010 Commercial Satcom Users Workshop are cautious and prepared for budget cuts that could have an impact on revenues and future business, some executives have identified growth opportunities in the next year. The launch of the third Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) satellite, along with the planned launches of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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-85491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85491"}],"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=85491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}