Tuesday, October 09, 2007; Posted: 05:58 PM
The service, targeted at small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and the government market, will be sold by WildBlue Enterprise Solutions' value added resellers (VARs). It provides an end-to-end secure solution, at broadband speeds, for business users of WildBlue Enterprise Solutions broadband Internet service.
The VPN offering combines a XipLink acceleration appliance with WildBlue's Ka band satellite equipment and integrated Trispen VPN (IPsec) software. It's also an international collaboration par excellence - WildBlue is based in Denver; Trispen is in Pretoria, South Africa; and Canadian XipLink calls Montreal, Quebec home.
The result is what Trispen Founder and CEO Jaco Botha called "a creative combination of technologies that delivers uncompromising standards-compliant security, optimal performance and instant reach to small and medium size corporations." He adds that his company is providing compliant IPSec with 128 or 256 bit AES encryption specially tuned for optimal operation over satellite broadband.
Separately, WildBlue signed what it calls a "technical and commercial relationship" with UDcast to jointly develop new products, services and markets for the enhanced delivery satellite broadband to the SMB market. UDcast offers an accelerated VPN gateway called UDgateway that, as an initial step in the deal, has been certified for use with WildBlue's satellite broadband. UDgateway is an all-in-one appliance specifically adapted to broadband satellite-delivered Internet access that has "satellite-aware" compression technology for the optimization of a satellite connection, resulting in what the company says is "substantial transmission speed improvement."
"Our relationship with UDcast will help us to expand our U.S. market presence in the enterprise sector," says WildBlue CEO Dave Leonard.
Meanwhile, on the consumer side of the satellite broadband market, WildBlue's primary U.S. competitor, Hughes Network Systems, says its service now is going to be sold in Wal-Mart's 2,800 stores. Hughes' target is rural America, and it pointedly notes that Wal-Mart stores include locations that are "throughout most of rural America where terrestrial broadband services, such as cable and DSL, are often not available."
"This relationship is a powerful way to make broadband a reality for the millions of Americans and small business owners who cannot get high-speed Internet access from cable or DSL providers," comments Mike Cook, Hughes' North America Division senior vice president.
Unusually for Wal-Mart, though, it doesn't appear Hughes is giving customers any real price break, saying its service sold through Wal-Mart will start at $59.99. That's the same price it charges through any other channel, plus $400 for hardware and installation, for 700 Kb/s downstream and 128 Kb/s upstream. For $79.99 a month, the hardware and installation is included. Wal- Mart customers do get a $100 gift card to spend at the store, but new customers through other channels simply get a rebate for that amount.
The HughesNet service compares with WildBlue's entry level of $49.95 for 512 Kb/s service and 128 Kb/s upstream, and $330 for installation and equipment, the price after a $150 promotional discount on equipment and installation currently in effect. At higher speeds, the two competitors are priced almost identically - WildBlue at $79.95 for 1.5 Mb/s down and 256 Kb/s up; and HughesNet at $79.99 for 1.5 Mb/s down and 200 Kb/s upstream.
TelecomWeb news break, Vol. , No.
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