There's no broadband here, just cheap narrowband for phone,...

First 87 Last

Share
Profile

Follow
Simoncho

5,299 Posts.

509

18/11/17

11:25

Post #: 28914617
Share

Originally posted by Thanky ↑

In the presentation Meir states that they made the first phone call using a nano satellite with a smartphone and a small interconnecting device. Does anyone know what this additional device is? Meir focuses on working with a $1 and $20 smartphone manufacturer, when I think the bigger issue is this additional device. There is a reason there are satellite phones and regular phones, regular phones do not connect to satellites.

I've also come across claims that their cost projections are 80% cheaper than existing satellite services. I think this will still keep their services away from people living on a few dollars a day. Even for an Australian this would be a very expensive service compared to the $25 I pay per month for unlimited calls and 4gb data. Satellite services are several dollars per minute. Data a whole other story. I'm also not sure what the bandwidth capabilities are of their satellites despite my searching. This is relevant to how many people they can have utilising them at any one time and also their likely fees etc.

I can see a small village shop perhaps subscribing to the service in this instance to provide a hotspot with the additional interconnecting device to allow people to make phone calls (rent a phone and make the call perhaps). But this will be one service for a village, not 100. This drastically reduces the estimates from there being roughly a 3 billion person market etc.

I can see more focused competition against existing satellite providers if they are 80% cheaper. Mining, infrastructure construction, shipping, aviation, hiking / explorers etc. I haven't Meir focus on that potential market disruption and possible revenue.

In many ways I like what they are doing but their sales pitch is very enthusiastic.

Expand

There's no broadband here, just cheap narrowband for phone, messaging and data. $1 phones will connect via a dish so no expensive satphones required.

The low-cost, high-portability potential for mining, shipping and aviation, which can easily afford to connect directly to sats, is huge. Site setup, tracking and blackbox recording can all be handled more rasily, cheaply and reliably than current. If we didn't have to rely on blackboxes or physically finding them intact, we wouldn't still be wondering what happened to MH370.

For more technical detail, read up PeterKing's contributions. They're the ones in blue font; can't miss them

SAS Price at posting: 16.5¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
7 Upvote

0 Great analysis

Reply