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