The opening ceremony of the IPSTAR Japan Gateway was held in the Sheraton Miyako Hotel in Tokyo. His Excellency Mr. Junji Suzuki, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and Mr. Chokedee Kaewsang, Minister (Economic and Investment) Office of Economic and Investment, Royal Thai Embassy were the guests of honor presiding over the ceremony. To coincide with the official inauguration of the gateway, IPSTAR launched special promotional packages in the Japan market until end of June 2009.
The Company is also planning to install free-trial IPSTAR terminals in 46 prefectures of Japan with a 1Mbps/512 Kbps package for a period of one year. Earlier in the month, IPSTAR Japan Company provided intensive training courses for the Japanese installers. In addition, IPSTAR is also looking for local service providers to be the IPSTAR distributors, especially in the rural areas of Japan.
Dumrong Kasemset, Ph.D., the executive chairman of Thaicom Plc. and the CEO of IPSTAR Co., Ltd., Japan, said, “We are very pleased that we have achieved a major milestone today by opening our 14th IPSTAR gateway in Japan. Services have started since April 1st and we have been receiving very positive responses from the Japanese market. Our target is to provide services to the unserved and underserved markets in Japan, which accounts for approximately 880,000 households. The Company is committed to support the Universal Service Obligation (USO) initiatives in Japan. In order to allow all the prefectures to have first-hand experience using broadband via satellite through IPSTAR, we will provide each of the 46 prefectures an IPSTAR terminal free of charge for a period of one year.”
Presently, IPSTAR provides full nationwide broadband satellite services in eleven (11) countries with 14 gateways: Australia, Cambodia, China, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, The Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan.