Since it was established in 1985, Australian Satellite Communications (ASC) has provided a wide range of satellite communications solutions throughout Australia and surrounding regions, building up a reputation along the way as being the leading provider of reliable, turnkey satellite communications solutions, focusing on the mining, oil & gas, construction, education, defence, and maritime, industries.
“Right from the business’s inception,” explains Paul Krzystoszek, Solutions Director, “the vision that the founder and previous managing director Chris Joseland had for the business was for it to always endeavour to be at the forefront of the sector and first with new technologies, solutions and innovations. Utilising his considerable knowledge of the market and the industry he really helped establish the level of entrepreneurship that the business has retained ever since.”
In the years that followed the company led the industry with the development of a number of technologies including being the first to adopt its iDirect broadband IP platform, which essentially marked the dawn of the era that saw the very small aperture terminal (VSAT) being supplied on mass to customers throughout the region.
The success of ASC in the last decade can in significant part be linked to Australia’s mineral and resources boom that commenced during 2005. “In many ways,” Krzystoszek continues, “our timing in adopting the iDirect technology coincided beautifully with the boom. It was the demand of this sector for such systems that saw us grow several-fold rapidly and that also created what remains to this day a hugely competitive market in Australia.”
Given this competitive climate it has never been more important for a business to stand out from amongst the crowd. Fortunately, as Krzystoszek goes on to highlight, this has never been an issue for Australian Satellite Communications. “Today, we use three specific words to describe ourselves: Credible, Flexible and Reliable. These are the key characteristics that have helped make ASC what it is today. In the early years we drew particular attention to our flexibility and our ability to deliver solutions in timeframes that others simply couldn’t achieve, thus setting the standard for delivery times that exists now.”
Credible and reliable, meanwhile, are two of the most common terms used by the company’s clients to describe their experiences of working with ASC. “It was Chris Joseland’s philosophy that every little detail of what the company did would contribute ultimately to the experience of the customer,” Krzystoszek states. “He also believed that it was important that the company take an ‘under promote and over deliver’ approach. This became almost a motto of the business and helped breed that strong sense of satisfaction from our clients that we constantly strive to retain to this day.”
In the early days of the resources boom the industry was a much different place where every customer was essentially after a basic system or product that could connect to the internet. “We have photos of the very first system to leave our facility, which consisted of a dish on a tripod stand, with a cable running from a modem into a single PC: it was that basic,” Krzystoszek says. “Today, mine sites are much more sophisticated and a much more educated market means that the focus is now on delivering value added services. These include things like wireless distribution, VoIP, link optimisation such as acceleration, web filtering and firewalling and many other associated value add services.”
With the needs of its clients evolving in such a rapid fashion it is all the more necessary for ASC to embrace innovation. It is for this very reason that the company pays particular attention to Product and Solutions Development divisions specifically tasked with investigating new technologies and developments within the industry. This division has a very simple mission and that is to help ASC get more out of the tools and solutions it has.
“When it comes to the resources sector,” Krzystoszek says, “we know for a fact that there are a great number of projects out there that are looking specifically at how to achieve greater automation of their operations. This drive towards automation is resulting in greater bandwidth requirements at the mine sites themselves as more data throughput will be required to control various equipment and processes. This therefore is a real area of growth that we expect to take off as more automation in mines becomes a reality.”
In December 2012, an announcement was made declaring that SpeedCast Ltd, a Hong Kong-based global network and satellite communications service provider, had completed a buyout of ASC. In joining the SpeedCast Group, ASC will be able to offer its customers a wider portfolio of products and services and better serve its global customers’ needs beyond Australia. Meanwhile, SpeedCast will leverage ASC’s outstanding team to deliver continuity of experience for existing ASC customers, while augmenting SpeedCast’s own team.
“The biggest plus for us by joining by SpeedCast is clearly the fact that they are a global player,” Krzystoszek enthuses. “SpeedCast has the infrastructure already in place and that means that today we can provide services on a global scale and gain access to a vast variety of solutions that we didn’t previously have. The net result for ASC is that we can now become a more aggressive player on the world stage and one that will be on par with known global brands worldwide.”
The established immediate plan for ASC is to ensure that it remains a well organised and structured organisation, even as its integration with SpeedCast continues at pace. “We are pushing forward with remaining at the forefront of the industry in the ever changing and highly competitive industry. We have a strategy and plan in place to remain sector leaders, competitive and as always, profitable.”
Written by Will Daynes, research by Peter Rowlston
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