Posted: 19th Apr, 2011 By: MarkJ
Broadband Satellite ISP Avanti (
Avanti Communications) has issued a new progress update on its 10Mbps capable
HYLAS 1 (
Highly Adaptable Satellite) rural broadband spacecraft, which was launched into Space last November 2010 (
here) and finally began coming into service earlier this month (
here).
At present Avanti is still concentrating on the process of migrating its base of approximately
5,000 Avanti end users (i.e. those currently using leased Ku-band capacity) onto HYLAS 1, which has so far proceeded to plan with 10% already moved. A further
20,000 customers from their ISP resellers are also slowly being moved on to the new platform.
The service itself, which charges around
£60 per month for an 8Mbps download speed (2Mbps uploads) and a 10GB usage allowance (
Rural Broadband ISP Reveals 10Mbps HYLAS1 Internet Prices), has reportedly met contractual service parameters with all of their customers and also confirmed requirements for modem deliveries from the supplier.
In 2010, Avanti specified that it was confident of exceeding a target for pre-sales signed by service launch of 25%. However, after having confirmed contracts and orders, the peak utilisation rate under HYLAS 1 aggregate contracts is now a much more positive 35.1%.
It's interesting to note that
52% of HYLAS1 backlog revenues relate to Enterprise and Military applications, with the rest coming from SME and consumer broadband services. Avanti expects backhaul provision (i.e. the bandwidth supply for other services) to play a more significant part in the very near future.
In related news Avanti has won its claim against
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (
SPACEX), which was originally supposed to launch HYLAS1 on-board a
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Avanti ended up pulling out of that contract in favour of an
Ariane 5 rocket from ESA and has today been refunded £4,637,440 ($7,566,013) plus interest from the failed SpaceX deal.