Andreas Georghiou, CEO, Spacenet Inc.

Via Satellite: Why are so many companies trying to play in this market if the economics are not favorable?

Georghiou: People that play in this space get excited with technology. I like technology, but I am not enamored with technology that doesn’t make money. People find something that is exciting and want to get in and then let someone else pay the bills later. We’ve been there, done that.

I think people are hopeful that something else will happen, and clearly, a spot beam satellite design that can provide the efficiency that is needed to cover hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of subscribers and [customer premises equipment] that can bring down the cost to low figures are the keys to a generalized economic model for this type of business.

Via Satellite: What does the creation of Spacenet government services provide that Spacenet was not doing for that market previously?

Georghiou: Spacenet in the past had a very significant government business. Going through the various ownerships stages, that business was retained. Some of the contract vehicles that Spacenet had developed are still in existence, though not with us. So we have a heritage, but really don’t have the business we created in the past.

Government agencies are very interested in satellite networks because it provides the mobility and addresses the seamless turn-on of a satellite-based network. All these elements make the government an attractive target, so we created the government services division. It’s clearly an area everybody is targeting and we hope we will be successful in tapping that market.

Via Satellite: Why are so many companies trying to play in this market if the economics are not favorable?

Via Satellite: What does the creation of Spacenet government services provide that Spacenet was not doing for that market previously?

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