For Immmediate Release
M E D I A R E L E A S E

Soul Pattinson Telecommunications (SPT) and New Skies Networks (NSN) today announced that they are joining forces to offer a wide range of innovative telecommunications products and services. SPT will access New Skies’ satellite technology and expertise to expand its product and service offerings to remote, rural and regional communities throughout Australia, with a dedicated focus on the underserviced regional areas.

“We are extremely pleased to work with SPT and take advantage of the synergies that exist between the two companies,” Chief Executive Officer of NSN, Maureen Murphy, says. “One of SPT’s prime objectives is to provide telecomunications services to the under-served regional areas of Australia and we are committed to assisting in the delivery of these services through our range of satellite services.”

SPT General Manager, Michael Simmons, further emphasised the Company’s regional focus. “SPT continues to expand its range of services with the introduction of satellite based services, ensuring that we now have an affordable, high speed telecommunications alternative for disadvantaged customers in rural and remote regions. This epitomises our approach to tackling the provision of services in regional areas that have long been neglected.”

SPT is a licensed telecommunications carrier in accordance with the telecommunications Act 1997. SPT is a full service telecommunications company operating in both the wholesale (through SPT wholesale) and retail (through Kooee Communications) markets. In the wholesale market SPT is primarily a ‘carriers carrier’, a wholesaler of high capacity bandwidth to telecommunications carriers as well as large corporates and Government customers. SPT builds, operates and maintains its own high capacity longhaul broadband network between Sydney and Brisbane.

In the retail market, SPT under the brand name of Kooee Communications provides local, long distance and International telephony as well as data networking, Internet and mobile telephony to residential, corporate and government markets.

NSN is a leading-edge satellite systems integrator providing service to Australian, Pacific and Southeast Asian communities. It provides a suite of satellite-based voice, data and Internet-related services to Government and corporate enterprise entities. In addition, NSN possesses widely distributed earth station facilities throughout Australia and has global access to satellite capacity. NSN is a wholly-owned subsidiary of New Skies Satellites N.V.

New Skies Satellites N.V. is a global satellite communications company with five satellites in geosynchronous orbit , ground facilities around the world, and three new spacecraft under construction. Headquartered in The Hague, The Netherlands, New Skies is one of only three fixed satellite services companies with truly global satellite coverage. New Skies offers video, voice, data and Internet communications services to a range of telecommunications carriers, broadcasters, large corporations and Internet service providers around the world.


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For further information, please contact:

Denis Ledbury
SP Telecommunications Limited
Ph: 02 4926 5007