More Crap from 3

Short Grass

Even that Illustrious organ The Financial Times is getting in on the NBS farce.
When the contract was announced in late December we were told that 8% of the total number (220,000) would be satellite and that the contract period was 5 years. This would have represented about 17,000 households.
According to this latest Press Release the numbers are now down to 6,000 and the contract period is 3 years and the total value of the contract is approx. €5,000,000,.
Please pardon my ignorance but if you look at the satellite providers' websites you will see that the hardware cost alone is about €1,000 per house so therfore the hardware cost for 6,000 units would be €6 million.
Are they providing the monthly service for free ??
What about the specification i.e. 1.2 meg down. 10 gig. per month download allowance and 48:1 contention ?
Still no mention of any further information about HYLAS 1.

Satellite deal brings broadband to rural Ireland

By Maija Palmer

Published: April 21 2009 09:53 | Last updated: April 21 2009 09:53

Homes in rural Ireland will be able to get high speed internet services through satellite connections following a deal announced on Monday between Avanti Communications, the UK satellite company, and Hutchison 3G Ireland, the mobile phone operator.

The deal underlines how satellite technologies could play an important role in providing broadband connections in European countries that are hoping to ensure all their citizens have access to high speed internet services.

In the UK, the government wants all homes to have broadband by 2012, and some are likely to get internet access through satellite connections.

In Ireland, the government last year awarded a contract to Hutchison 3G Ireland to supply broadband to the 10 per cent of the population that currently cannot get it.

The 220,000 Irish homes without broadband are located in rural areas, and most are likely to get internet access via mobile connections, starting later this month. It is too expensive to provide fixed line connections.

However, Hutchison 3G Ireland could supply internet access to up to 6,000 Irish homes through satellite connections.

The initial connections will come through Avanti’s wholesale satellite arrangements. The deal with Hutchison 3G Ireland is worth £4.6m to Avanti over three years.

The Irish deal underlines that mobile operators cannot provide broadband coverage to the most far flung rural areas. It can be too expensive for them to build large numbers of towers and base stations to send wireless signals to a remote hamlet with only a handful of homes.

Satellite connections have in the past been too expensive and slow to provide broadband for the mass market. The services have also been prone to interference from wind and rain.

However, new technology is changing this. Satellite operators such as Avanti are using a new band of spectrum, known as the Ka band, which allows powerful spot beams to be focused on small areas. In the US, Wildblue Communications offers internet connections to rural areas using this kind of technology.

David Williams, Avanti’s chief executive, said broadband services over satellite should cost around £20 per month, bringing them into line with prices for fixed-line and mobile connections.

“It is now becoming axiomatic that if you want universal broadband provision you have to use satellites for part of it,” he added.

Avanti is negotiating similar deals with other mobile operators around Europe. Countries like Spain and Poland, with large land areas and widely spread populations could see greater use of satellite for broadband connections than the relatively densely populated UK and Ireland.

Avanti currently supplies satellite broadband services to telecoms companies by renting capacity off satellite operators. It plans to launch its first satellite this year.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Sponge Bob

Frankly I believe this came from Avanti to hide the fact that a Spacex launch was aborted early this week ( they are to launch Hylas) . A this rate of going Hylas will not make it up before 2011 .

bealtine

Short Grass wrote: »

Avanti is negotiating similar deals with other mobile operators around Europe. Countries like Spain and Poland, with large land areas and widely spread populations could see greater use of satellite for broadband connections than the relatively densely populated UK and Ireland.

Wait a minute aren't we the most sparsely populated country in Europe?
That's what the government and the telcos have been saying for years, now the FT tells us that we are "relatively densely populated".

You know I'd believe the FT any day.

netwhizkid

I just made my way hear to post this after finding it plastered across the front pages of www.satellites.co.uk, I first checked for the vomiting smiley though, which about sums up my views on it.

Your formatting is all over the place Short Grass so here is the article link for whoever is interested.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/04d7d536-2b67-11de-b806-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

watty

It's subscription link.

There are these days cheaper terminals (VSAT) that are about €250 ex installer cost.

The Astra2Connect is a regular 75cm TV dish + holder with a cheap 500mW ODU (traditional VSAT uses expensive 2W ODU). It's underpowered for west of Ireland.

Avanti's new system (they have existed rented space for traditional €1000 VSAT on IS903, very poor beam here) is more simlar to Tooway based VSAT. You can see that Tooway offers more speed than Astra2connect for similar price. Unlike Hylass / Avanti it exists today and is from an established major operator.

Even so Avanti has practically been giving away their system, to get customers as it is experimental satellite part ESA funded on an experimental launch vehicle (4th or 5th launch in queue) which has never flown yet.

Someone at NBS HQ did not do due diligence. Picking a sat provider that may not exist and doesn't exist at NBS rollout time should have disqualified 3. Actually offering HSPA mobile should have disqualified them too, but that is a separate story.

Until Hylass1 is up and running it's vapourware. It would be different if Avanti was a major operator with existing suitable capacity, but they are a very small sat reseller without any existing suitable capacity for Ireland. (You need a 1.8m dish in west for IS903)

Sponge Bob

Yahoo normall carries stuff behind the FT sub barrier .

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/21042009/399/satellite-deal-brings-broadband-rural-ireland.html

Like I said, pure PR arse from Avanti

Short Grass

Until Hylass1 is up and running it's vapourware. It would be different if Avanti was a major operator with existing suitable capacity, but they are a very small sat reseller without any existing suitable capacity for Ireland. (You need a 1.8m dish in west for IS903)[/quote]


Watty how do you make out that Intelsat 903 needs a 1.8 metre dish on the west coast ?
As far as I can see from their footprint their EIRP is about 46 which equates to an 80cm. dish. Am I missing something ?

Sponge Bob

Avanti only have 1 transponder or c. 25 mbits of downlink ...for all their customers everywhere in the world, thats Transponder 61

see

http://www.lyngsat.com/intel903.html

watty

The relationship between EIRP and dish depends on:

Elevation: Lower elevations have more non-clear sky loss and more rain fade.
Modulation mode: Higher rates need more SNR
FEC used.
Bandwidth used

Also the EIRP is indicative of the ground station driving the transponder with enough power. The satellite operator also charges a premium for full power.

You can't run as high power in some modes.

That is all just on Downlink to user. Typically VSAT needs a larger dish than TV on the same beam. You want to be in the pink bit (> 52dB for an 80cm dish in the rain).

Also unless it's like Astra2D (they want to suggest it is limited for UK/Sky/BBC "rights" reasons) Sat footprints are an optomistic best case. TWTs age etc too.

What you don't get so easily are the user UPLINK footprints. The dish size depends on that and your terminal ODU power, also to a lesser extent the size of earth station hub dish.

I'd guess Avanti's hub /teleport contractor hasn't maybe full power or a big enough dish, because I'm reliably informed it needs 1.4m Kildare and over 1.8m west of Shannon.

http://www.lyngsat-maps.com/maps/intel903_spot1.html

Avanti has TP61 split into two channels 10969V and 11025V
They use DVB-S2 which does allow more capacity, but at expense of needing more power or SNR, which means a bigger dish as power is fixed.
20 M syms/s 2/3 FEC
12 M syms/s 3/4 FEC

At 48:1 contention about 500 to 2,000 users . That is for ALL of Avanti's customers over ALL of europe. Actual numbers depend on contention, Modulation mode, overheads, packages sold etc.


This spot is Digiweb Schools
http://www.lyngsat-maps.com/maps/intel907_spot1.html

These footprints are current TooWay
http://www.europe-satellite.com/EMS/popup/footprint_tooway.htm
(Lots more with spot beams for Ireland comming soon)


TV receive DVB-s Ku Dish Size
(DVB-s2 or VSAT or less FEC or higher modulation rate Or
reliable rain margin or lower power ODU on VSAT needs larger dish)
Ka band (newer systems inc Hylass1 and Tooway) can use a smaller dish though rain loss is higher.

EIRP| Dish cm
50  |	50-60
49  |	55-65
48  |	60-75
47  |	65-85
46  |	75-95
45  |	85-105
44  |	95-120
43  |	105-135
42  |	120-150
41  |	135-170
40  |	150-190