- Hello, and welcome to "Community Chats."
I'm Aley Hammer, and today, we're interviewing John Loke,
the CTO at Kacific.
John, welcome to the show.
Can you start by telling our audience
a little bit about Kacific and how the AWS
leadership principle Customer Obsession
translates into Kacific's mission?
- Kacific is a next-generation broadband satellite operator.
In 2019, we launched our geostationary Ka-band satellite,
Kacific 1, into space.
Today, we are committed to providing universal fast
and high-quality broadband to 25 countries
in the Asia Pacific.
Kacific uses proven space technologies to solve
the lack of affordable broadband internet
in rural and underserved regions in the Asian Pacific
by making internet affordable and accessible.
Wedding our customer needs for affordable broadband
and our continuous drive to improve service quality
and reliability for our customer,
Kacific aligns nicely with AWS Customer Obsession
leadership principle, as we strongly believe too
in being customer-first.
- And John, Kacific recently won multiple awards
at the Pacific Telecommunications Council in January.
So can you tell us a little bit more about your
outstanding achievements there?
- We are very honored to have been recognized
and awarded two awards at PDC 2022 earlier in January.
We were recognized as the Outstanding Satellite Company
of the Year with our innovative retail
franchise model, GigStarter.
GigStarter was created during COVID-19
to address the shift in needs for free managed
and prepackaged plans that can be sold
month by month, plan by plan.
With our innovative technology and Agile business model,
we have managed to reduce the price for a gigabit
by nearly 50% in our market.
The other award that we are very honored to receive
was Outstanding Support for PTC Vision and Mission.
When the COVID-19 hit, medical care
and realtime communication became more crucial
than ever for many remote communities.
This was when Kacific stepped in to bridge this gap
with GuarantCo, where we provided free installation
of our visa terminals and a free 30 gigabyte
to 1,000 rural medical facilities.
Medical professionals are now able to coordinate
with COVID-19 health response and arrange
emergency evacuation efficiently, saving more lives.
- These are amazing awards, and you should be
so proud of everything Kacific has achieved.
So John, why did Kacific actually decide
to move all in on AWS?
- Our focus has always been to work with leading
international partners to complement our satellite assets
and advance the global broadband infrastructure.
Kacific is seeking a cloud-first approach
to provide accessible high-quality cost-effective broadband
internet connectivity, and this is best achieved
with scalability, agility, and AI readiness of AWS.
- Thank you for sharing, and how does AWS
actually help Kacific on a day-to-day basis?
- AWS now holds our IT infrastructure
and critical business application.
This reduces our time to market
and enhances our network management, helping us respond
more rapidly to customer requests.
Kacific can now deliver more detailed levels
of monitoring and reporting, providing our customer
with key network information at more granular levels
and ultimately improving their experience.
AWS suite of cloud services gives Kacific
the agility to scale its operation support system
and business support system.
Market entry is easier, as adding capacity
and storage is managed with a simple request
without the need to contract house or set up
a physical server, which can be a long and tedious process.
- How amazing that you've been able to respond
more quickly to customer requests and achieve
that deeper level of reporting and monitoring
as well as scalability, and John,
to round up this interview, how does Kacific
embrace the AWS leadership principle Think Big,
and how does this translate into the next steps
for your company?
- Since Kacific launched its Kacific 1 satellite
in December 2019, the company's operation
has scaled rapidly across the Asia Pacific.
Kacific currently operates in 25 countries
around Pacific and Southeast Asia,
has connected more than one million people in the region,
becoming the largest Ka-band satellite operator.
Kacific now is working towards launching
a second satellite, Kacific 2, which we'll see
enter new and larger markets.
Our total addressable market will grow
by at least a factor of five, a level
of growth that's best achieved
with the scalability, agility,
and AI readiness for partner like AWS.
- John, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
It's been a pleasure speaking to you.
It's such an interesting space, this whole satellite space,
so thank you so much, and if anyone has any questions,
please pop them in the comment section below,
and we'll get back to you.
Thank you so much.