TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Beam the poor guy home,
it’s cold and snowy over
Hawaii-Pacific Teleport is the Teleport Developer of the Year, according to the World Teleport Association, which just wrapped up its Satellite 2003 conference in Washington, D.C.
The award is presented annually to a teleport that has been operational for no more than two years and no less than 18 months; it is given to the teleport which has developed most in that period of time, according to Vince Waterson, vice president of business development for Hawaii-Pacific Teleport in Kapolei.
Not even close to a Star Trek "transporter," it's what started as Telstar in 1962 -- much older now and on steroids. Telstar is the most widely known of the early satellite communications devices. Among other achievements it was used to beam the first live television signal from the United States to France.
In Telstar's day, it received signals from and relayed signals to ground stations. They later became known as earth stations. Now they're teleports.
The Kapolei array started as a "greenfield site in September of 2000," Waterson said. "Since then we have built up a large teleport serving three Asian satellites." He named JCSAT 2A, MEASAT2 and AGILA 2.
"These three satellites combined cover an area stretching from New Zealand to Japan to India, including all the countries in there," Waterson said.
The company beams the Internet by satellite to those countries.
"Indonesia has 14,000 islands. The Philippines has 7,000 islands, so there, fiber is not really available. Even in countries that have fiber, such as India, the fiber is subject to interruptions," he said.
"We really are a gateway for the Internet to these countries," said Waterson. "From our one base in Kapolei we can hit two-thirds of the world's population, several billion people."
Beyond the Net, the company relays NBA games to the Philippines and several religious television channels into Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
It can also work the other way. Should a news organization want to send video to the United States from Afghanistan, the teleport can do that.
The teleport also has a contract with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to provide telephone relays to Midway Island.
The company and Waterson are headquartered in California, to which he was anxious to return, despite the honor of the award presentation.
"It's snowing heavily here," he told TheBuzz.
Hawaii-Pacific Teleport
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com