Playing Hardball... Consumer Satellite Internet Competition
DirecWay took the gloves off and came out swinging at Wildblue over the last few weeks. With the experience of over 10 years of satellite internet under their belts combined with the sloppy rollout of Wildblue through the NRTC to exploit, DirecWay's new DW 7000 is selling like hotcakes.
The new DirecWay 7000 is strong competition for the fledgeling Wildblue for several reasons:
1.It has faster speeds (albiet more expensive per month).
2.Similar low latency...at least by satellite standards (usually under 800 ms).
3. Compatibility with many voip products (which Wildblue hasn't been able or willing to support).
4. Availability of static IP addresses (required by a good number of vpn teleworkers) - Wildblue doesn't offer them.
5. Immediate availability (Wildblue won't be available to much of underserved America until the end of 2005 or even early 2006).
6. An Installation group with many years more experience than the NRTC recently trained installers for Wildblue.
7. A Network Operations group with 10 more years of experience than Wildblue has.
8. The 7000/7700 series equipment can be mounted on vehicles for mobile internet anywhere in the U.S.. The Wildblue setup cannot be used outside of it's original "beam" without cancelling account and recommissioning.
The new Network Operations Center constructed for the DirecWay 7000's is in Las Vegas, NV. It is state of the art and in a weather friendly part of the country (vital for high uptime). The gateways are specifically designed for the 7000 family of equipment now sold by DirecWay and they utilize the recently created Digital Video Broadcast S2 (DVB S2) packet technology which improves effeciency by up to 40%....not as efficient as ka band internet, but very close. What this means is that DirecWay can deliver faster speeds with the same number of customers they historically have to put on satellite transponders to make a profit.
The bonus for DirecWay is the fact that the equipment involved in the rollout of the DW 7000 series (7000 is consumer and 7700 is for Enterprise) is Ka Band compatible. When (or should I say "if") DirecWay's Ka Band SpaceWay III is launched, much of this equipment will work with the new satellite and technology.
Will the DirecWay rollout of DW 7000's spell doom for Wildblue? I rather doubt it, but Wildblue needs some working capital pretty soon from all indications and this is a fairly hostile high tech investment market right now. DirecWay(SkyTerra) is slightly profitable right now and in a better position to market their new offering than Wildblue.
What Wildblue has going for it right now is a U.S. based Customer Support group with a very good attitude and distinct English is spoken. This could always change as the number of customers increases (currently at about 8,000 compared to DirecWay's 250,000 or so).
The next three to four months should be very important to both companies in the competition for the consumers unable to obtain Cable, Wireless or DSL high speed internet connectivity.
The new DirecWay 7000 is strong competition for the fledgeling Wildblue for several reasons:
1.It has faster speeds (albiet more expensive per month).
2.Similar low latency...at least by satellite standards (usually under 800 ms).
3. Compatibility with many voip products (which Wildblue hasn't been able or willing to support).
4. Availability of static IP addresses (required by a good number of vpn teleworkers) - Wildblue doesn't offer them.
5. Immediate availability (Wildblue won't be available to much of underserved America until the end of 2005 or even early 2006).
6. An Installation group with many years more experience than the NRTC recently trained installers for Wildblue.
7. A Network Operations group with 10 more years of experience than Wildblue has.
8. The 7000/7700 series equipment can be mounted on vehicles for mobile internet anywhere in the U.S.. The Wildblue setup cannot be used outside of it's original "beam" without cancelling account and recommissioning.
The new Network Operations Center constructed for the DirecWay 7000's is in Las Vegas, NV. It is state of the art and in a weather friendly part of the country (vital for high uptime). The gateways are specifically designed for the 7000 family of equipment now sold by DirecWay and they utilize the recently created Digital Video Broadcast S2 (DVB S2) packet technology which improves effeciency by up to 40%....not as efficient as ka band internet, but very close. What this means is that DirecWay can deliver faster speeds with the same number of customers they historically have to put on satellite transponders to make a profit.
The bonus for DirecWay is the fact that the equipment involved in the rollout of the DW 7000 series (7000 is consumer and 7700 is for Enterprise) is Ka Band compatible. When (or should I say "if") DirecWay's Ka Band SpaceWay III is launched, much of this equipment will work with the new satellite and technology.
Will the DirecWay rollout of DW 7000's spell doom for Wildblue? I rather doubt it, but Wildblue needs some working capital pretty soon from all indications and this is a fairly hostile high tech investment market right now. DirecWay(SkyTerra) is slightly profitable right now and in a better position to market their new offering than Wildblue.
What Wildblue has going for it right now is a U.S. based Customer Support group with a very good attitude and distinct English is spoken. This could always change as the number of customers increases (currently at about 8,000 compared to DirecWay's 250,000 or so).
The next three to four months should be very important to both companies in the competition for the consumers unable to obtain Cable, Wireless or DSL high speed internet connectivity.
posted by Randy Scott at 10:19 AM
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