OT Hi Dan, not yet. Still trying to figure out what how to get around the maple in my back yard. Check this out, though:
From...
Satellite Net access
comes to Earth
by Alex Lash
(IDG) -- For years, consumers have been waiting for the
magic of broadband access to the Web. But the rollout of
cable modems and DSL phone lines – commonly viewed
as the definitive solutions to providing consumers with the
speed that many workers already enjoy in the office – has
been slow. This delay has left an opening for a third
alternative many people had already written off:
satellites.
And it's not just pie-in-the-sky. There's been plenty of
hype about upstart satellite companies' plans to build an
"Internet in the sky." Teledesic, the grandest experiment,
is planning a constellation of hundreds of low-earth-orbit
satellites (LEOS) flying less than 1,000 miles above the
Earth, promising anytime, anywhere voice and data
services. Backed by billionaires Craig McCaw and Bill
Gates, among others, Teledesic is still several years and
at least $10 billion away from completion.
A simpler form of
Net-over-satellite access is
already a reality, however.
Subscribers to services like
Hughes Electronics' DirecPC
service can receive a thick
stream of Web pages, Usenet
groups and e-mail on their
pizza-size satellite dishes.
Sending data is another matter,
requiring a phone line, a modem
and an ISP account (see "Beam
Me Down, Data," below).
This "hybrid" solution hasn't
exactly set the world on fire.
DirecPC has only sold between
80,000 and 90,000 dishes.
Nonetheless, competitors are
testing the waters. This spring,
EchoStar will bundle Microsoft's
WebTV with its Dish Network
home service, although initially
Net access will be delivered
over phone lines. The same goes
for Loral Space &
Communications' upcoming
Cyberstar service.
Consumer Internet access via
satellites wouldn't even be on the
horizon if cable and telephone
companies had been faster to the
punch. Digital subscriber lines (DSL) are still a trial
technology in most areas of North America, with an
estimated 40,000 paying lines installed. Cable companies
are faring a little better, with about 530,000 subscribers
signed up. In both cases, rollouts are slow. The Yankee
Group estimates that 40 percent of the U.S. still won't
have access to either technology in four years' time.
Thus, providers like DirecPC and Echostar-Microsoft
have an opportunity to market to people who either aren't
within the reach of cable or DSL, or beat those services
on price.
As is so often the case with prospective consumer
technologies, businesses are proving the potential of
accessing the Net via satellite. Mail Boxes Etc., a
business-center chain with 3,100 franchises, is replacing
its intranet wires with VSAT, or very small aperture
terminal, satellite dishes.
Using VSAT networks for such things as daily inventory
updates is nothing new. There's a good chance that when
you swipe your credit card at the pump of your local gas
station, a dish on the roof zaps the details to a data center
and completes the transaction within seconds.
Mail Boxes Etc., a San Diego-based subsidiary of U.S.
Office Products, is adding a twist to this process. Its
franchises will use VSATs to give walk-in customers
Internet access. Along with word processing and desktop
publishing, customers will get the Net with their $10- to
$12-per-hour computer rental fee. That traffic will share
the same two-way network with MBE's internal data –
credit-card purchases, marketing material, company
e-mail and the like.
"To go with a terrestrial solution, we'd have to deal with
a bunch of telcos," says MBE executive VP Tom
Herskowitz. "Now we have a single provider: Hughes."
Herskowitz says he'll keep costs down by making the
satellite hookup mandatory for almost all MBE franchises,
thereby guaranteeing Hughes hefty volume as the system
rolls out. Herskowitz hopes to have at least 350
franchises looking skyward by the end of the year.
DirecTV's recent purchase of its troubled rival Primestar
could enable it to further speed deployment of its services
to both homes and businesses. The direct-to-home
satellite market already reaches 30 million homes
worldwide, and that's sure to pique the interest of Net
content providers that can't get access to TCI's cable
network.
Still, skeptics say that the need to use a phone line with
satellite systems will limit their appeal. And Mitchell
Berman, senior VP of marketing and operations at
OpenTV, an interactive TV software vendor that competes
with WebTV, wonders whether the satellite TV
demographic is ready for the Net.
"On Saturday night in Iowa, I know who's sitting on a
couch with a remote control in their hands," he says. "It's
$40 to $50 a month just to watch TV over cable or
satellite, and now you're asking them to reach in a second
time [for the Internet]?"
The advent of two-way broadband services that use
LEOSes promises to change the market dramatically. But
when that will happen remains an open question.
Iridium, the first of the LEOS systems, is up and activated,
with 66 satellites. For now, though, it's strictly a voice
and paging service with a miniscule 2400 baud rate, and it
requires expensive, bulky phones. Iridium's parent,
Motorola, has floated the idea of upgrading the service for
broadband data, but officials are mum about concrete
plans and say they'll wait to gauge reaction to the initial
voice and paging rollout.
Skybridge, a division of French telecommunications giant
Alcatel, is shooting to deploy an 80-satellite LEOS
system designed for broadband data communications by
2001; Teledesic plans to launch a whopping 288 by 2003.
But getting huge fleets into orbit is rife with peril –
exploding rockets and space debris, for example.
Numerous technical challenges also remain.
"Investors will look to Iridium's success as a bellwether,
even for [later] broadband projects," says Tom Watts,
managing director of Merrill Lynch's satellite equity
research. One good sign: Iridium's 66 birds emerged from
November's Leonid meteor showers unscathed.
What the new LEOS projects and today's Net-satellite
services have in common, though, is an enemy:
cable-modem services and DSL. It would be ironic if
exotic space-age technology turned out to be a more
practical alternative to the lowly coaxial cable and the
copper telephone line.
The state of high-speed access
Digital Subscriber Line Access (North America)
Subscribers at the end of 1998: 39,000
Projected subscribers by end of 1999: 248,000
Home DSL passes: 34.7 million
Source: TeleChoice
Cable-Modem Access (North America)
AtHome Subscribers: 330,000
Road Runner subscribers: 180,000
Subscribers to other services: 25,000
Projected subscribers by end of 1999: 1.5 million
Homes cable passses: 22 million
Source: Company Information and Kinetic Research
Satellite Access (Worldwide)
Home DirecPC dishes shipped: 80,000 to 90,000*
Business VSAT terminals installed: 220,000
Source: Company Information and Satellite Industry
Association
* No subscriber numbers available.
Beam me down, data
Still a hybrid
Capable of speeds of up to 400Kbps incoming, DirecPC
isn't as fast as other broadband services, but it's available
almost anywhere. A phone line is needed for outbound
traffic, which is routed through an ISP to DirecPC's Earth
station and out to the Net. Incoming e-mail and Web pages
are beamed from the Earth station to a satellite and back
home. What seems roundabout can take less than a second
– if there's no Net congestion.
Sup. |
