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Too right, MTB. It's actually incredibly valuable as well as educational to have someone with the clear detailed tech, networking, comms and VSat smarts of Shake posting on here. To back that up, I'll happily admit that I now have a much better understanding of what jitter actually is, thanks to Shake's original and almost entirely excellent post.
Shake- Hits was talking to (the once again proven moron that is) Whats occurring, not you - he clearly values your technical input as we all do.
Romaron, I'd absolutely agree that the bond-holders supported the D4E swap because in their view it represented the best - or if you're a tad more cynical, the least worst - possibility of the size of any return for them. I - and I bet many others - am still on tenterhooks regarding the short-term need for an extra $45m (or $85m) and how that's going to come about. As before, AVN was as you say obliged (and I'm sure you're right) to notify the market on April 9th of what is to all intents and purposes a ticking timebomb. We know when it's set to go off, but we don't yet know what the defuse strategy is. As to most likely prospects for significant revenue generation for AVN? Western Europe is in my view no longer a natural volume market for VSat, leaving aside some specific vertical market applications. Although there is almost certainly some ongoing potential in the old Eastern bloc countries, where there never was much comms infrastructure, one then runs into economic and disposable income issues. Elsewhere, every satellite operator and his dog is busily chasing the in-flight connectivity market across the transatlantic flightpath corridor and not a small number of deals have already been signed up. That's going to be a bunfight in my view (and apparently a Ku-based one, counterintuitively). Nope, I still say that Africa is where the vast majority of effort should be focussed (and beams for that matter).
Good post romaron, The end part summs it up. "some of the scary wording was the result of the OO and the T.O. Panel requirements"
that have been bugging me. The DforE swap wasn't agreed by the bond holders out of altruism ( O/T I remember a champagne bar off Bow Lane called the Altruist many years ago) so something persuaded them to keep us on life support and it is usually self-interest. They are looking at reducing their loss so one argument could be to say that in their opinion this is the base and with H4 in space they can get a better price (reduce their loss). They don't have to share much as they grabbed the lions share and today's RNS shows what any holders percentages drop to. Not sure here but I'm guessing that if they'd taken 100 per cent they possibly limited their options and it would have been a fire-sale. So their bet is along the lines of increasing the share price & copping 92.50 percent or forcing a sale whilst H4 is still being set up. A bit like selling an uncompleted hotel and somebody saying room occupation is poor. Maybe H4 would have been cancelled? I also note that Chris McLaughlin a long time ISAT employee still describes himself [Linkedin] as Special Advisor to ISAT and NED at Avanti. I'm not reading too much into this but there is a certain incestuousness in a business with few large players. ISAT beneath the guff have a few problems (today's trading update) whilst the rebuff by Avanti to an opportunist Facebook approach (if true) shows some positives in that you would have to count your fingers after the handshake. I worked in an industry that as it matured companies merged or were acquired. I never always understood the motivation but it usually involves redundancies and cost cutting. Going forward I have mixed thoughts. The hiring of staff whose CV's are blown up could well be individuals who are past their sell by date and in a contracting (over supplied) industry have few options than to join a struggling company. Against that they now have an enhanced product to sell. I also feel that the company's financial future is now sound and some of the scary wording was the result of the OO and the T.O. Panel requirements; at least that is what I was told privately but then 'they would, wouldn't they'. Any thoughts?
The institutions may have been scared off by SS warnings of impending burst of song by the fat dame. I am a holder with faith in the purpose of the business. What is the purpose of SS with 'Strong Sell' recommendations almost on a daily basis, Are you a disgruntled former employee?
Shake, I am absolutely not offended in the least! I am absolutely well aware that your technical knowledge far FAR surpasses mine. My perhaps slightlly mischievous dig was aimed fair and square at WhatsOccurring (WO)... but hey, he started it... and anyway my Dad's bigger than his Dad... etc etc Okay enough with the playground politics :)
HTS - I’m sorry your offended, as I’ve said your absolutely correct and it was a poor post from me. I’m glad your here on this board as is others. Can we leave it at that / brain fart by me :-)
Thats an interesting view. May I suggest that if this was the slam dunk buy then we might be seeing institutions adding to their holdings at these levels ?
Boys, boys, boys ..... You are 3 of the best posters here so don't fall out over minuteae that flies over the head of most of us here. The fact that it has a role to play in BH is enough for me and I imagine we're not a one trick pony. All I know is that I'd accept latency rather than have nothing.
Shake, given that I will invariably bow to your far superior technical knowledge in all things Vsat which massively surpasses my own, I'm pleased just once to have been of some teeny help :). Thanks for confirming that I wasn't going slightly nuts with my "back of a fag packet" GCSE physics calculations. WO... apparently I clearly do understand, which is equally clearly more than can be said for you in this matter. Perhaps you should have paid a little more attention in GSCE physics? Anyhow for the record, I am not trying to run anything down,. Instead I am just trying to get my head around which opportunities are well-suited to VSat and which are not - and also establish that the figures and exclusions published in the recent Ofcom USO consultation are accurate (they are).
HTS - So embarrassing your absolutely correct, my mind was somewhere else/ 125ms per leg uplink and downlink. Glad to be corrected. Thanks for replying
Still amazing its taken them so long to sell. Dame Fat lady is on the steps up to the stage...
Hylas 4 does appear to have the niche in the market, (and an enormous market at that too) financially things leave much to be desired, but fundamentally its off to a good start. I look forward to successful in orbit testing then let the story begin......
Shake I was hoping you'd reply. Leaving aside packet prioritisation and just concentrating ion basic physics for a moment... By my reckoning, a geostationary satellite is roughly linearly 40,000 km away from say London. That's accurate to say 10%. The speed of light is 300,000 km per second. Presuming no other lag whatsoever anywhere in the system, a ping for example sent over satellite has to travel 80,000 km to get to its destination - as does the reply. A one way trip of 80,000 km surely then has to take a minimum of 267ms, no? Isn't that the utterly unavoidable minimum latency inherent?
I understand the technicals but let's be honest we have been constantly battling with dates over the last few years hoping that one day that date will bring a definite change in predicament so AVN can progress. I'm afraid we are again talking about another date in June and I'm sure when we get there it'll be another date. It was only last week we were all talking about 30th April being pivotal. The fact is this mess which has been going on for a few years now needs to be cleared up before any focus on H4 and it's potential can be realized. And like I said previously it's a shame the new debts etc were sprung on us in the last significant RNS and we are being left in the dark until June to find out whether all this investment and support for this business has been worth it. Its disappointing AVN cannot concentrate on what it does best and it needs some positive movement in the debt side of things before contracts and 100% utilization becomes realistic. Because currently no one will be interested in taking up contracts with a company which issues a statement setting out how it is at risk of being no more.
Regarding the posts about using satellite for Voice services couple of things comes to mind. Audio calling requirements for PSTN access demand toll quality latency to be less than 150ms between calling parties a well engineered solution can see latency through satellite in the region of 125ms one way, whilst it’s usual to have 150ms to 175ms one way in practise - the human brain doesn’t really differentiate this little bit extra and we don’t really notice latency in conversations over satellite until the one way gets above 250ms. Second observation is jitter, as we know this is the delta between regular data packets arriving timely, audio calling typically demands less than 20ms jitter in packets so the audio play out doesn’t have predict the construction of missing voice packets using algorithms... however introduce a fixed delay on either side of the satellite link usually referred to in Cisco terms as a play out delay buffer of 30ms will vastly reduce the jitter inherent of TDMA systems, another principle technique is also the allocation of flash traffic which allows an agreed burst of traffic without the network hub authorisation/ assigning the remote vsat time slots... long story short an perhaps too much science for this board voice works well over satellite as does supporting cellular data with the techniques for data acceleration (TCP) and compression...
If we can get past june and survive, and H4 passes all relevant tests up in orbit then I've no doubt Avn will win multi $$ contracts as there is no comparable service in the areas covered by H4. And as long as Elon Musk doesn't keep shooting more satellites up into space to compete with us hopefully well have the captured market. I don't want to see any more restructure either just like every one else, but lets hope for the best. I also agree that debt has accrued due to delays, which can't be blamed on Avanti, also will Avn claim compensation for these delays?
Restructure again !!!!! Please no !!! Most people are only just about getting their heads around this one.
If correct and 100% utilisation is taken up, and Avn can bring in $22.4m per month, , then surely we can recover over a matter of 3-4 years. Just because the finances are on a knife edge, it doesn't mean the end, plenty of companies survive financial problems, we just need to restructure- again. With the experience and contacts Nigel Fox has in Africa it can mean a real lifeline to the company.
Is there even a word "fifthly"? Separately, technically I simply just don't get how geostationary satellites can be used to provide adequately performing backhaul for MNOs like EE and Vodafone. How do they get round the latency (and to a lesser extent the jitter) issues? I mean, Ofcom's Universal Service Obligation consultation conclusion (published a few weeks back and which is set to become government policy very shortly) specifically excluded geostationary satellite-delivered broadband as a viable technology to play any role in delivering the USO on those two unavoidably inherent criteria alone? It's baffling. Mind you, what with AVN isn't these days....
To be honest it doesn't look good. Now that the rights issue has failed the company should issue a statement as to the impact. Or have they already done that with the warning they gave prior to the offer?
so WO, I would say the following: - This is only true if they get 100% capacity, something they have singularly failed to do on their other satellites - Secondly Revenue is only part of the equation. Cash flow is the key, which means they have to be on top of other costs, including interest. - Thirdly, for how long will they be the only ones able to offer this service. Seems to be new satellites going up every 5 minutes - Fourthly, remember that legacy PI holders will only get 7.5% of the spoils they would have got pre D4E. - Fifthly, will they even get the chance to develop Hylas 4? Still got a bit of fundraising to do to keep the lights on, right?
The debt has got so high due to lack of sales on the current fleet, most likely due to the price being too high per mhz, although saying that what a good result getting BT/EE on board for the ESN project, that is a very good case study to have on the books. New CEO with a very good history new BOD members and lots of sales jobs being advertised, slow road to recovery here, liked the Milicom connection also they have brands including Tigo. GL all
...and slidey slidey slide slide......;-))