MUMBAI:The US-based Andrew Corp is rejoicing in the Land of Siam. The reason: it has pocketed a $20 million plus contract from Shin Satellite Public Company (Shin Sat) which runs the Thaicom3 satellite. Andrew will be setting up a network of 18 earth station gateway systems throughout Australia, Asia, and New Zealand for ShinSat's iPSTAR broadband satellite system.

The target period for commercial launch of the satellite system: end 2003 while the rollout is slated to start in mid-2003.

ShinSat's iPSTAR satellite system is positioned as a provider of low cost, high capacity, direct-to-desktop, two-way broadband communications services across Asia, India, and Australia.

The services it will offer include: Broadband Internet access, mass broadband access service, virtual private networking over iPSTAR, video conferencing, and iPSTAR's voice service. The iPSTAR network will be pushing for custom in Australia, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand, The Philippines, and Vietnam.

The configuration of each of the gateways, which will have its presence in various countries include: an Andrew 8.1-meter Ka- band (20-30 GHz) earth station, a Ku-band broadcast earth station (with a 7.6-meter antenna), and accessories.