KUALA LUMPUR: Home-grown satellite and communications (satcom) services company TS Global Network Sdn Bhd (TSGN) aims to become a leading player in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region within five years, offering satellite teleports, Internet protocol (IP) gateways and data centre hosting capabilities.
Its group chief executive officer Kent Ho said the group has plans to tap into the Indo-China region, in particular Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines as they are greenfield markets for satcom services.
“Currently, our business model comprises 90% domestic sales and 10% regional sales. We plan to change this dynamics to 60% domestic sales and 40% regional sales over the next five years, as we are very bullish on the Asean market,” he told The Edge Financial Daily in an interview.
The group, which specialises in satcom services, currently has operations in Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, with a combined workforce of 64 permanent employees in the three countries.
In order to finance its expansion plans, TSGN has set aside RM250 million in capital expenditure. Of this, RM100 million has been utilised in building the TSGI Cyberport in Cyberjaya, which will be officially opened tomorrow by Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek.
TSGI Cyberport is a purpose-built facility that caters to the latest network technology, operation resilience and satcom technology.
“Our Cyberport comprises an antenna farm which will house up to 32 small and large antennas, an international IP gateway with connectivity to local and global telecommunications operators, and a 40,000 sq ft tier-three data centre,” said Ho.
In terms of its customer base, Ho said the group’s three main customers are broadcasters, telecommunications service providers, as well as large corporations.
“We have a collaboration agreement with Telekom Malaysia Bhd, which led to the launch of our third-generation very-small aperture terminal (VSAT) services branded TM StarNet,” said Ho.
The VSATs facilitate the transmission and receiving of data from multiple points of presence, which enable business enterprises ranging from petroleum retail networks to plantations and the oil and gas (O&G) industry to establish a secure real-time connectivity with their respective remote network for a host of services from credit card sales, plantation-industry operations and essential communications.
Among the users of TM StarNet are Petronas Dagangan Bhd, which uses the service as a retail point of sale infrastructure for its network of petrol stations; Sime Darby Plantation Sdn Bhd, for its entire plantation network across Malaysia and Indonesia; and ExxonMobil Malaysia, which uses the service for its offshore O&G network.
This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 23, 2015.