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Providing services inchallenging environmentsITC Global was founded in 2001 to provide carrier-gradetelecommunications and network technologies to the energy,mining and maritime industries, which often operate in harsh orremote environments. In August 2015, ITC Global was acquiredby Panasonic, which has provided both companies withimpressive economies of scale and enhanced efficiencies. AmySaunders met with Yagnesh Rajendran, Vice President, GlobalEnterprise Sales and Business Development, and SanjaySingam, Vice President, Global Engineering at ITC Global, tofind out more about how the company provides services inchallenging environments.

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Question: What can you tell us aboutITC Global’s services and capa-bilities?Sanjay Singam: We’ve gained accessto an extensive network portfolio andas part of the Panasonic organization,we’ve recently added new satellitecapacity to our global mobility network.In Asia, we’ve added Eutelsat’s latestsatellite, E172B, where we have accessto extensive high-throughput satellite

(HTS) beams. In the US, meanwhile,we’ve added SES-15, which has gonelive this year, and we’re starting to rampup our services with that. It’s a similarstory with SES-14 in the Americas,which is planned to be online inSeptember. Then there’s APSTAR-6D,which is a brand new extreme-throughput satellite (XTS). ITC Globaland Panasonic will review customerrequirements to determine how we can

best leverage it for client needs.The whole point behind XTS is that

it ’s the evolution of HTS. Beamscontinue to get smaller, but we arelooking to pump more bandwidth at thesame time. With the traditional wide-beam satellites, you can get about 50-60 megabits per second (Mbps), whilewith HTS, you’re looking at about 100-150Mbps. With XTS, we’re talking about400, 500 or 600Mbps. XTS is just onecomponent of the new satellite; it’simportant to see that it’s not just thesatell ite, it ’s also the platformtechnology that is utilized. We need tobe able to offer clients the right platform,and we don’t believe in one size fits all.With APSTAR-6D, we’re going toleverage Newtec and iDirect technology,but there are other options as well.

Question: What can you tell us aboutthe latest trends you’ve observed inyour markets?Sanjay Singam: One of the main trendswe’re seeing is that with HTS systemscoming on line, the networks are gettingmuch larger and the beams are getting

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Yagnesh Rajendran, Vice President,Global Enterprise Sales and BusinessDevelopment

smaller, but far more efficient. HTSbeams deliver throughput significantlygreater than traditional satellites,amplifying the complexity andincremental costs of the network, withmore teleports, uplinks and a largerterrestrial backbone required.

We have to help customersunderstand that HTS isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. For example, if you’respread from the Middle East all the wayover to India, one HTS beam is notgoing to cover your needs. We’ve hadcustomers tell us they want a completeHTS network from us, but when webreak it down, that particular customermay need five spot beams, which maynot be as cost effective as a traditionalwide beam. So, there is some educationthat has to be done to help the customerunderstand the full options versus justtaking in the marketing hype. Our globalmobility network is built on wide beams,spot beams and HTS beams, and withAPSTAR-6D, we’ll have XTS beams.That allows us to provide the rightnetwork designs and coverage for eachof our customer’s unique requirements.

For example, we have an oil and gascustomer that’s been in the sameoperating region for the last five yearsbecause they’re drilling. HTS is perfectfor that customer because they’re notgoing anywhere, and their operationsnecessitate a large amount ofbandwidth. However, for the traditionalcommercial maritime client, it may notwork as well. Some of clients doleverage our HTS networks, because ithelps us bridge between Europe, theAmericas and Asia, but we’re judiciousabout when we utilize HTS, because it

doesn’t make sense to have sitesdropping in and out of a networkconstantly just because they have tokeep shifting frequencies.

We really believe that for the oil andgas market, XTS is going to be a gamechanger. A decade ago, thosecustomers were asking for 512Kbps upand 512Kbps down, and that was a lotat the time. Today, we’re deployingnetworks that deliver 100Mbps downand 50Mbps up, and we’re offering themeven more. Between our ability toleverage the buying power of thePanasonic network, and pricingdeclines in space segment, our clientsare now getting a lot more for theirmoney.

To me, the next evolution of satellite,and what we at ITC Global are lookingat, is beam forming and the ability touse transponders to follow ships as theymove around. Think of the advantages– you wouldn’t have to worry aboutreaching the beam edge, switchingbeams or switching frequencies. Thereare great opportunities in the cruisesector for those capabilities as well.

Question: How does your Crew LIVEpackage factor into these recentmarket developments?Sanjay Singam: What we see in the oiland gas industry, parts of the miningindustry, and par ts of the cruiseindustry, is a greater focus aroundremote staff and crew welfare. Bringing

the best and brightest into yourcompany and keeping them there isgetting harder and harder.

This led to the launch of our ITCCrew LIVE platform, which includes apay-as-you-go internet service thatenables users to keep in contact withloved ones back home. Crew LIVEdelivers segmented bandwidth foremployee personal use, so thatcorporate personnel don’t have to payfor the crew connectivity anymore. Theyused to have to buy an extra 1-5Mbpsof traffic out of their own pockets. Now,ITC Global is saying that we’ll install theequipment at our own cost, we’ll deploy

Sanjay Singam, Vice President, GlobalEngineering

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a reliable network solution for the staffand crew, and we’ll keep any revenuegenerated from the service. BeyondCrew LIVE data packages, we recentlyreleased a video-on-demand (VOD)service, which went live in April 2018and provides access to a library ofnewly released Hollywood movies andpopular TV series.

Since launch, the Crew LIVEplatform has gained more than 30,000individual registered users across 55offshore sites, and we’re adding to thatnumber each day. More and more oiland gas customers are moving to thecrew connectivity model, as it coststhem nothing to set up. Interestingly, it’s

a very bottom-up approach. In somecases, the crew love Crew LIVE somuch that they’re advocating to theiremployers that their company utilize ourservices for their corporatecommunications as well.

Crew LIVE comes with manyadvantages compared with othersystems. For one, redundancy is reallyimportant, so we have two satellitescovering each area around the globe,enabling full redundancy. Providing thissatellite diversity helps deliver highavailability service so the crews usingthe service don’t have to worry aboutnot speaking to their families backhome. We design and deploy custom

networks that deliver 99.7+ percentnetwork availability and we put ourmoney where our mouth is – goingbeyond the expected to meet or exceedcustomer service level agreementsevery time.

The security implications areincreasingly prevalent as well. Byhaving a separate system for crew andcorporate communications, Crew LIVEremoves 100 percent of crew devicesfrom the corporate network. Thenetworks are completely independentin terms of equipment, so any potentialviruses from crew member deviceswon’t touch the corporate network. Thisis huge for our clients and is making aworld of difference in their proactivesecurity posture.

ITC Global has its own securitysystems on the back end to block andmanage network threats, andproactively notifies the customer if avirus is found on their system.Additionally, if the corporatecommunications network goes down,the crew welfare network can becomethe backup.

Now, we’re starting to look at newprojects like artificial intelligence (AI),Big Data and platforms to helpcustomers leverage all their data andinformation to drive efficiencies andimprove their business. It used to be allabout the bandwidth, but now it’s aboutwhat value we bring to the organization.

Question: In March, ITC Global wasawarded a contract renewal with PlanInternational for communications to24 sites in Western and CentralAfrica. What can you tell us about thedeal?Yagnesh Rajendran: We’ve had arelationship with Plan for a number ofyears. The recent deal came about froma very competitive bid, and for us, it wasa very strategic win. In this market, yourarely find customers makingcommitments for more than two years,so we’re very pleased to continue toserve Plan for another three years. We’llbe managing their end-to-end needsand looking after all their sites, fromdispatching to troubleshooting.

Sanjay Singam: We also do trafficshaping for Plan. If they want to prioritisecer tain applications, they can gettogether with our engineering staff andwe’ll put together a strategy describinghow we’ll shape the traffic to ensurethey’re getting the data that’s mostimportant first, and the less important

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data second. Internet surfing for crewduring their down time, for example, isa lower priority than other shipboardcommunications needs.

Plan’s needs have shifted over thelast three or four years, and almostquar terly, they’re asking us to dosomething slightly different. It ’simportant than we can respond andadjust to their needs as they grow andtheir pr ior it ies change based onhumanitarian missions.

They renewed with us because wehave strong satellite coverage overAfrica, which is fairly new, and we’veworked with them to drive toward mostcost-effective pricing. That’s beenimportant in keeping their business. Theother aspect was that Plan didn’t wantto increase their bandwidth for the totalnumber of sites in Africa; instead, theywanted to be more efficient with whatthey had.

As part of our renewal with them,we’re visiting every site, checking everyantenna, every BUC, every LNB and the

remote equipment. We’re also startingto prioritize different parts of their trafficas they require, including blocking trafficto sites they don’t want on the network,such as illegal downloading sites. We’realso fairly flexible on IP addresses andcan even help down to how many sitesshare a particular IP. Most providerswould just say ‘here’s your one internalIP address,” but we allow them to useexternal IP addresses when needed.

Question: Providing tailored servicesunique to each customer is a big partof what ITC Global is all about. Canyou tell us more about thisapproach?Yagnesh Rajendran: It ’s verycollaborative, the way we operatetogether with our customers. Forinstance, we can suggest moving themfrom one satellite to another based ontheir needs or what we think would bein their best interest for their operations.Similarly, if they need certain fundsallocated for maintenance or field

service work, we can do that based oncommercial changes.

It’s important to have that kind ofopen dialogue ahead of and during thecourse of a contract.

In this sort of consolidating market,pricing is dropping by the month; if welook at the next generation of satellites,the costs are going to come downfurther. So, the real value of the actualservice sits within the management andthe maintenance of that service.

What we do for customers like Plan,and all the flexibility we create for them,is a clear reflection of what we can dofor all ver ticals in the remotecommunications industry. It’s veryimportant for clients to know that theyhave subject matter experts who canmanage and maintain their service.Most companies don’t have the abilityto hire groups to work within their teamsto be able to manage their services. Weare those exper ts, and in a fast-consolidating market, we definitelystand apart.

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