The next Pacific Telecommunications Conference, PTC ’10, will again focus on a hot topic for many in the telecommunication and IT industries, "cloud computing". While seemingly esoteric to many, especially some in the sometimes insular satellite sector, cloud computing is coming to dominate the thinking of planners and implementers in many telecommunications and IT sectors. The conference, to be held January 17-20, 2010, in Honolulu, Hawaii (www.ptc.org), will bring the concept of cloud computing down to earth and examine its impact in a variety of ways, including the challenges and opportunities it presents to the satellite sector.
Making the first effort to bring "the cloud" and the guys "in orbit" together will be the World Teleport Association and Society of Satellite Professionals International organizations (WTA and SSPI), which have organized a morning-long workshop on Sunday, January 17. The workshop will focus on how satellite services can be integrated into the emerging world of cloud computing. Mark Dankberg, chairman and CEO of Viasat, which plans to launch its own 100 Gbps satellite early in the new decade, will describe that project, how it will build onto the recent acquisition of WildBlue, and future prospects for high capacity satellites. Other speakers from iDirect, Cisco and Hughes Network Systems will address such questions as the risks and rewards of ground vs. space based routers. Gary Hatch, President & CEO of ATCi and Alan Young, CTO of SES World Skies will discuss the impact of IP on content distribution and how the satellite industry is staying ahead of the curve; and Stephen Yablonski , of Globecom Systems, who will discuss new concepts for satellite-based content distribution in a cloud-driven world. The workshop will wrap up with a discussion of how the increasing bandwidth demands of cloud computing are pushing satellite services providers in new directions. This discussion will be headlined by Glenn Katz, President and COO of Spacenet, Inc.
The second day of the conference will also have a significant satellite focus. Industry leaders will appear in three different sessions, giving their views on the state of the industry and how it will adapt and complement the emerging cloud computing model. A special luncheon panel will focus on challenges and contributions in meeting increasing
operator requirements from key infrastructure suppliers. Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman and CEO of launch industry-leader Arianespace and Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX, the emerging launch challenger, will join Arnold Friedman and Eddie Kato, theSenior Vice Presidents, Marketing and Sales, respectively, at Space Systems/Loral and Thales Alenia Space. They will be followed immediately by the annual headline Asia/Pacific satellite leaders’ panel session, chaired by Susan Irwin, of Irwin Communications. This year the panel will feature Peter Jackson, CEO of AsiaSat; Baozhong Huang, Vice President of China’s consolidated industry leader, Sinosat; and Andrew Jordan, President & CEO of SAT-GE, as well as others.
Having heard from the industries’ leaders, the day’s last panel session will focus on bringing communications to the unconnected via satellite. Among speakers lined up for this panel will be David Ball, of Intelsat; David Hartshorn, Secretary General of the Global VSAT Forum; Dr. Nongluck Phinainitisart, President of the Asia Pacific Satellite Communications Council; and Ramesh Ramaswamy from Hughes Network Systems, among others. Industry experts Gregg Daffner and Jeremy Rose will drill down to get the hard facts about how satellites can complement and extend the emerging global computing cloud.
For those seeking complimentary information and to have it all explained further, PTC’10 will feature a variety of top experts from industry leading companies, both big and small, who will examine the importance and impact of cloud computing around the world and region.
