Cyprus-Forum.com

[ethnet]

We are a leading provider of Broadband Internet connectivity using two way V-Sat technology.
Due to the increase in demand for high speed internet connections throughout the European community. We are currently looking for resellers to provide our products and services, supplying Hughes sytems of America a quality fast speed internet in any rural area.
This is a golden opportunity as people also need telephone lines and we have just launched a telephone via satellite service VOIP.
For a chance to supply this service and become a reseller please contact

[email protected]
www.ethnetuk.com
tel 0044 1763 250418[/b]

[brother]

O.k seen your web site and it all looks very promising but what sort of margins are we talking and how far afield can you instal i.e say turkey or northern cyprus

Also whats the take up like in the u.k and what sort of investment are we talking about to get started, what will you supply and what sort of monthly payment will the customer make....more info please...thanks

[ethnet]

Hi the answer to your first question is our satellite footprint covers all of Cyprus and Turkey. If you want some information on margin and renewable monthly income you need to give me your e-mail address and I will send you some information. This is an exciting opportunity!

[erolz]

Hi

Firstly I should declare my interest.

I currently use a hughes DW6000 2 way sat service here in Cyprus provided through a UK company called Bentley Walker in the UK (http://www.bentleytelecom.co.uk/index.htm). In fact in order to get my own sat service here in Cyprus (north) I became an agent in NC for Bentley Walker. Since then I have help a few other people get set up here with 2 way sat systems (both the Hughes DirecWay products and Bentleys 'Star Pro' products). I do not really run this as a business but more as part of my desire to try and get more BB internet connections into Cyprus and a long standing general interest in getting people to use and get value from computers and networks.

For info my connection is a hughes DW6000 and my current level of service is 512k down and 128k up (gold service).

To give you an idea of costs the sat dish (98cm), LMB and sender unit and the DW6000 cost about UKP800. On top of this were the cost of getting the the kit from UK - shipping (air frieght actually) and import duties which came to about another UKP200. I paid a local metal worker about UKP20 to make me a 'mounting post' for the dish and a local sat TV installer another UKP 30 for installing the dish and pointing at the right sat. My monthly service charge is EURO 155.

These are the 'trade' prices that Bentley give me as an 'agent' - though I guess that larger agents may get better prices. I do not do this as a business but more as someone who likes to help people get use and value from ICT. Typicaly I charge a small flat fee for helping (in region of UKP 100-150 depending on the system being installed) and then just pass the same prices onto my 'customers'. Sorry if this looks like advertising - it's not really.

There are some things that anyone considering a 2 wat sat system needs to consider. Two way sat services have some very real limits vs wired services (like DSL based services). The main one is the inhernet 'latency' of the connection. Latency is basicaly a measure of how long it takes a 'data packet' to travel from your machine to another and return again. These are seen in 'ping times'. Because of the sheer distance between a sat dish and a geostaionary satelite (38,000 miles?) * 2 (up to the sat and back down to earth again) 2 way sat based BB system typicaly have pings times in the region of 800ms - 1000ms (milliseconds - 1000ms=1second). What this means is that 2 way sat systems are no good for certain applications that require low ping times (like online gaming and VoIP systems that do not have special 'hardware' based compoents like skype or MSN or Yahoo voice etc). Also because of the overhead of travelling up to the sat and back down again applications that typicaly send lots of small packets (rather than few large packets) become slow on 2 way sat systems - because each packet incurs this overhead thus more packets more delay. The major application this affects is VPN (virtual private network) applications. There are various harware and software systems that mitigate some of thes issues but they don not eliminate them totaly and the hardware solutions inccur siginifcat costs.

There are issues also with what kind of IP address you get with such systems. Typicaly the sat box does not have a public external IP add but is an internal (to the sat prvder) private IP address (or range of addresses). How the public IP address that you 'show' to the internet is mapped to your actual internal IP address and how much control you have over this mapping varies from service to service. This can affect how easy (or even if it can be done at all) it is to get certain applications to actualy work over the system.

Having said that in an area like NC, where there are no (significant) residental / small office BB services like DSL or cable based systems (like are available in most EU countries) then despite it's costs and limits 2 way sat services have much to offer. I certainly would not like to return to dial up.

I am also going to make some comments / ask some questions about the ethnet service. If this looks like 'competition bashing' then I appologies in advance - this is not my objective. My objective is to provide as much information as possible to those interestd in this area.

Under the 'prices' section oth the ethnet website it says "No transfer limit". In my opinion this is a little misleading. If you expect to be able to download at 512kbps for a sustain period of time on two way sat systems such as these then you will be disapointed. Whilst my Hughes service has no specific 'transfer limit' after about 200-300MB of constant downloading at around 50-60Kbytes/sec the connection speed will drop to around 20Kbytes/sec. After another 200-300MB this drops again to around 5Kbytes/sec. Leave the connection unsed for a period and these rates return to their higher levels again. The fact is that any 2 way sat system short of 'exclusive / dedicated bandwidth' (which cost many 1000 of punds per month) will have limits on usage on way or another.

It also seems that ethnet are offering the DW4000. In my personal opinion this system (which Bentley used to market under the 'star duo' brand) is a 'less than ideal' system than the newer DW6000 box. The main differnces are that the DW6000 connects via ethernet and not USB like the DW4000 - which makes it truly 'platform independent' and thus any machine can easily be connected to it - MacOS, linux etc. With USB you will need specific USB drivers which will be OS dependent. Also the DW6000 contains 'web accelerator' functions within the box itself (these work by taking the 20-30+ sperate indivdual TCP/IP requests on a 'typical' webpage and bundle them up into a single 'big packet' - thus creating a single 'up to the sat and back down to earth' overhead instead of 20-30+ overheads. This large single packet is then 'reconverted' back to the indivdual request at the other end of the sat link where they go onto the internet as normal). On the DW4000 boxes this 'accelerator' function is done by a small piece of software that needs to be installed on each client machine connected to the DW4000 box and again this software is OS depndent. That is not to say the DW4000 is a bad product - it is not. For the right type of user it is fine but people should be aware of these differences.

The ethent site mentions dish sizes of 74 and 89cm. These are fine in the UK but in Cyprus one would need 98cm or 1.2m dishes.

Anway if anyone wants any help or advice on 2 way sat systems then do feel free to PM and I'll do my best to help - whoever you buy the system from.

[ethnet]

Firstly can I congratulate you on your article. I must first apologise for our web site not being completely up to date in respect to our current product range and services. It will be very soon. The DW4000 has been discontinued and replaced by the DW6000. I would love to talk to you further and send you some information on current pricing if you’re interested. If you can send me your e-mail address I will attach some info. Mine is [email protected] I look forward to hearing from you.