 Welcome to WRC 19, the World Radio Communication Conference here in Shemashach in Egypt. We're very pleased to be joined in the studio today by Rupert Pierce, who is the CEO of IMRSAT. Rupert, welcome to the studio. Good morning. Great to be here. Now, I'd like to start off by talking to you a little bit about IMRSAT. You've obviously decided to spend some of your valuable time here. I just really wanted to find out so why is this conference so important to you? Well, World Radio conferences are actually very important for the whole satellite industry and the reason for that is not just that we're a classic infrastructure business and we invest over long cycle times. Our cycle times are very long, so five to seven years to launch a new fleet of satellites and then another 10 years to make some money. Those are long times. We need stability for investment, but it's also because satellites reach wide areas. We tend to focus on regional or multi-regional areas. In fact, for IMRSAT, we build global networks. What the World Radio conference brings us is the ability to deliver global solutions to develop long-term spectrum policy. It's an essential foundation for us and our business. Without the stability and the long-term thinking at a World Radio conference, we couldn't make the long-term investments in revolutionary products and services in our segments. So it's a vital four-year process. What do you hope some of the outcomes will be from this conference? Well, I'm hoping that we will see recognition of the special role that satellite services plays in the world. I think it is a profound role that we can play. So whilst obviously 5G is incredibly important to get right at this World Radio conference to set up the transformation that 5G services will bring to the world, it's also important to recognize that satellite can bring complementary capabilities. If you think about IMRSAT, we are a mobile broadband provider, and the constituencies we focus on are the maritime industry, a trillion-dollar global industry, the aviation industry, which is one of the fastest-growing global industries at the moment, and governments who need space-based capabilities to deploy. Those are inherently global requirements. We're essentially extending 5G into the seas and into the skies. And that's really vital to make sure that 5G is for everybody. And of course, at the edge, we and other satellite operators also are looking to extend 5G into rural and remote areas. So again, the 3 billion people that today don't have access to the Internet can have it, and satellite, therefore, complements the whole 5G story. In the past, people have had an impression that satellite communication is an expensive business. I wanted to ask you, in principle, has that come down now? Is it much more affordable? Is it much more accessible? I think we're going through a golden age of innovation in the satellite industry. Over the last 10 years, we've seen an absolute transformation in capabilities and cost. What that's done is it's brought satellite into the mainstream. It can now sit happily alongside terrestrial and terrestrial mobile technologies in terms of delivering solutions. Let me give you an example in Immasat's world. Four years ago, the World Radio Conference approved eSIMS in Ka-band, which supported us in bringing our mobile broadband network to market global express. Today that delivers 50 megabits per second. By 2023, that will be 1 gigabit per second. The pace of innovation is absolutely extraordinary. If it was a megabit per second, you couldn't say that was broadband, but no one will disagree that a gigabit per second is broadband. The costs have tumbled as well. Several million people already access broadband in the United States of America in suburban areas from satellite operators. Their sweet spot of cost has now rests alongside the terrestrial mobile industry, which is necessary if we're going to bring about a coalition between these different technologies. And of course, satellite communications come very much into play in disasters, in emergency situations when terrestrial infrastructure has been destroyed. That's right. While on the one hand it is very important, I think strategically, to extend the 5G experience to citizens of the world into the seas, into the skies and into remote and rural areas, which is a well-known role for satellite. Equally, satellite has played a big role in the past 20, 30 years in disaster areas, whether they are man-made or whether they are humanitarian disasters. Terrestrial networks go down, satellite is there. And I think there's an important strategic issue even there as well. Because as our society becomes more pervasively connected, as we start to rely on big data and AI and robotics, then the consequences of connectivity going down for our society become greater. Becomes more important that our networks are both highly resilient and highly secure. And we're beginning to see satellite networks being deployed alongside terrestrial networks as a backup to sustain our digital society. Now I know that you're a member of the Commission, of the Royal Bank Commission. I also know that INMAR-SAT is very, very much linked with the work of ITU. I wanted to ask you, what advantages does that bring to the industry? Well, the Broadband Commission is just a privilege personally to serve. Three billion people do not have access to the Internet today. And yet we know that the role that connectivity can play in enabling human potential of every kind. And so I think we have a duty to the world as a community to find ways to liberate the potential of every human on this planet through the power of connectivity. As one of the sacred roles of the ITU, it's something the whole World Radio Conference has to bear in mind. At INMAR-SAT, yes, of course, we have a passion for connecting the unconnected and for empowering that human potential through the power of satellite broadband. But satellite is just one tool to be able to really liberate the potential that comes from making broadband available. It's not even networks, of course. You can give someone access to a network if they're not trained and enabled, if they don't have an environment in which they can be entrepreneurial and flourish and grow their potential, then the connectivity doesn't deliver the outcome that it should otherwise do. So it needs a multi-layered, holistic approach. And I'm very proud that the Broadband Commission is seeding ideas in governments, in regulators, in thought leaders to drive the adoption of broadband throughout the planet. And how relevant is the work of ITU and ITU study groups? It's absolutely pivotal, because the weight of the ITU and the credibility of the ITU as a neutral body is profound. As a multilateral global organization, it brings the whole world together to solve problems together. And I think, you know, at this time, we can look outside and see the troubled world. We can see a number of big issues around productivity, around climate change, for example. And I think having multilateral organizations like the ITU has never been more important. Well, thank you very much for being together with us. And we hope very much to catch up with you again at some stage in the very near future. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.