Firm picks Oahu
for satellite facility

A Maryland company is creating
a U.S.-Asia telecom link in Kapolei

By Rick Daysog
Star-Bulletin

A Maryland-based satellite communications company wants to make Hawaii its telecommunications link between the mainland and the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region.

Orion Network Systems Inc. last month acquired two satellite dishes from GTE Corp. at the Kapolei Teleport and has agreed to lease 2.78-acres from the Estate of James Campbell. Orion plans to build a third antenna on the property by August 1998.

The cost of the local satellite network and terms of the land lease were not disclosed.

"Orion's Asia-Pacific gateway provides our customers with a direct connection between the United States and Asia," said W. Neil Bauer, Orion's president and chief executive.

"We will provide comprehensive communications services to the region reaching all of the major Asian metropolitan areas as far west as India."

Under the plan, Orion customers like the British Broadcasting Corp., Amway Corp. or Citibank would use the Kapolei network to "bounce" financial information or Internet transmissions back and forth between Orion's mainland satellite and a soon-to-be completed satellite that will serve Australia, China or India.

A credit card customer traveling to Shanghai, for instance, could make card purchases there instantly using this technology, said Dick Barber, executive director of the Pacific Telecommunications Council. Or, an Amway salesman in Australia could instantly reorder supplies from the company's mainland distribution offices to stock his inventory.

(Satellite communication is a major telecommunications medium in Asia since many of the emerging countries there don't have the fiber optic or cable infrastructure.)

Local businesses also could benefit. A company like the Bank of Hawaii could use the system to link their offices in the Pacific or a gas station operator could link their outlets for credit card purchases less expensively, said Howard Schwiebert, telecommunications asset manager at Campbell Estate.