Ku-band Mantra

It is now over a year that Internet access, using Ku-band through VSATs, was
legally allowed in India. Leading vendors like Hughes Escorts, Comsat Max and
Bharti Broadband came up with their retail packages. Initial investment in the
hardware is quite affordable for the SME segment. Especially in upcountry
regions where bandwidth and reliable connectivity is the main cause of concern,
this solution should have swept the market. Still no one seems to have touched
sizeable figures in proportion to the potential projected last year.

Different expectations

Retail/SME have different expectations. Unlike corporates, they would like
to get involved in the installation process, they like to have a technical and
user manual, initial training and hand-holding on the product and also little
bit of fault-finding ability. Upcountry people generally look for local service
arrangements and as such it is a must to have either resident engineers based
nearby or to train and authorize the channel partner at the local level to take
care of the same. It is essential to train channel partners on the do’s and
don’ts of the Ku-band technology. It is also equally essential to have a
fairly stable commercial policy and rates for bandwidth, as orders in upcountry
generally take fairly long time to get finalized, specially for these type of
products.

Understanding
upcountry

This product cannot be targeted at metros or mini metros as there are
various economical alternatives like reliable dialup connections from various
ISPs, ISDN, leased line, VPN and DSL available to the buyer. This has to be
pitched in a market segment where the user is not getting any reliable solution
from the land line connectivity. Having identified upcountry as a potential
market one has to study the buying behavior in that region. Users in upcountry
regions need a lot of education and hand holding in the initial period till the
product is established. Vendors may have to invest in advertising and promoting
the technology first. The retail buyer goes by the philosophy of "Seeing is
believing" and for that the vendor may require a working demo site within a
radius of atleast 250 kms. Creating technology awareness and then selling the
brand are the two key objectives of all these activities. Once the acceptance of
the new technology reaches a particular level, buying decisions will be purely
based on the brand recall and of course the service.

Weather woes

The Ku-band technology has its own inherent problem. In the event of cloudy
weather, especially during monsoons, the bandwidth one gets at the terminal is
very erratic. This is so even if the Ku-band operates in the frequency range of
12 to 14 Ghz as against four to six Ghz used in extended ‘C’ Band which is
used in conventional VSAT for any commercial or WAN environment. The throughput
also drops down drastically due to repeated resending of data packets, and
sometimes gets reduced to the dialup speeds. In some parts of India, where
monsoons last for almost three to four months in a year, the buyer has to take
help of the local land line again to compensate for the speed.

Creating credible channels

It is almost impossible for anyone to reach the depths of upcountry without
a proper channel. The channel partner must be a well-known figure in the local
market experienced in networking jobs and should preferably be one of the ‘opinion
makers’. Also the margin paid to channel partners must be in tune with the
work required for all the marketing activities. Finally the company should
ensure partner loyalty, as they are the ones who would establish the brand. The
time is not far away when the private basic telephony companies will start
providing connectivity and ‘all-in-one’ type of solutions right from voice,
Internet, entertainment, and education at very low investment points as compared
to VSATs.

Sudhir Budhay is proprietor, Business
Algorithms. This article originally appeared in DQ Channels India