Kacific’s commitment to bridging the digital divide for unserved and underserved communities across Asia and the Pacific has been recognised at the Asian Telecommunications Awards 2022. Award organisers, The Asian Business Review, named Kacific the Company of the Year and Christian Patouraux, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kacific, CEO of the Year.
The Asian Telecommunications Awards celebrates outstanding companies, whose remarkable initiatives and achievements transform the lives of customers and keep the region moving forward.
Since its inception, Kacific has been committed to transforming the lives of underserved and unserved communities by delivering affordable and reliable satellite broadband. The satellite industry has traditionally had high barriers to entry, but Kacific was the first operator who managed to bring a satellite into service starting its mission without capital, the backing of an established parent company or a license to operate.
Christian founded the company with a singular mission of making a lasting difference to people in rural and remote areas by ensuring that they enjoy the same online access to information and services as the urban population. Kacific’s founding insight was that unmet demand existed in these markets because of their sensitivity to pricing and the affordability of data.
Christian made a strategic decision to use powerful Ka-band satellite technologies to beam bandwidth from a geostationary High Throughput Satellite (HTS). This resulted in greater spectral efficiency and higher frequency reuse, enabling Kacific was able to tremendously reduce the cost per Mbps. Kacific has exceeded the affordability target set by the ITU and UNESCO which has achieved our goal of making high-speed internet both affordable and accessible in the Asia Pacific.
To respond to the high retail demand created by the pandemic, Kacific’s business model diversified its business model by adding a franchise retail broadband model to its wholesale model distributing bandwidth primarily through large ISPs and telecom operators. The new model was created partly in response to businesses finding it difficult to commit to long-term contracts.
Kacific’s innovative franchise retail model, Gigstarter, is a pre-packaged, prepaid, monthly broadband service, which allows channel partners to resell broadband plans easily to end users plan-by-plan, site-by-site through small, light, and easy-to-install VSAT terminals.
This offers many practical advantages for distributors or ISPs alike, including the hassle-free deployment of pre-packaged broadband plans with turnkey fair use policies and quality of service settings.
The second limb of Kacific’s proactive response to the pandemic was to re-shape its distribution channel. Kacific developed a network of Authorised Distributors (KADs) in which local entrepreneurs can participate and get licensed to resell Kacific’s broadband services in remote regions. The KAD channel has created avenues and opportunities for rural economic development, further increasing Kacific’s reach and impact in the remote and isolated regions in the Asia Pacific. Thanks to the presence of Kacific’s Authorized Distributors (KADs) in remote cities, the ability to interact, reach and serve customers have become easier given the movement restrictions imposed by different governments due to the pandemic. “Kacific is honored to receive these awards from the Asian Business Review,” said Christian Patouraux. “We’re committed to serving this region.”
“While Kacific provides the infrastructure and bandwidth, the real heroes are the distributors and installers and support staff who, every day, bring life-changing internet into remote villages and communities, and the teachers, health workers and small business owners who use that powerful tool to transform their world.”
Today, the Kacific serves over 1 million users and is the largest Ka-band satellite operator in Asia Pacific. It has connected 18,000 users at schools, many of which did not have prior broadband access, and 11,500 users at healthcare clinics, dispensaries, and hospitals with a service that often proves a central contributor to saving lives. Kacific’s pioneering business model has proven to be meaningful, successful and sustainable.
Kacific is preparing to launch Kacific2, a more advanced geostationary satellite in the next few years to continue scaling its services to meet the growing demand for internet connectivity, vastly improving the quality of life for people across the region and bringing them together.
