Hybrid networks of terrestrial and satellite networks that offer broadband connectivity are moving more into the spotlight and companies are seeking new opportunities and new markets to exploit this trend.

The latest example of this comes from World Communications Center (WCC). The company announced a channel partnership with Strix Systems, a company specializing in high-performance wireless mesh networks, to provide local area networks (LANs) and Internet access via satellite and using Wi-Fi to cover “the last mile.”

WCC will combine Strix’s self-configuring and self-healing wireless mesh network systems with WCC’s portable VSAT terminals to create a wireless LAN Internet connection. The satellite-enabled Wi-Fi network will offer the ability for a number of businesses to remotely connect to corporate networks, the Internet, as well as provide access to the e- mail.

New Markets

For WCC, the partnership is key to opening the company up to new business opportunities for fixed and mobile services, Weldon Knape, the company’s CEO, said. The opportunities extend beyond WCC’s current offering of satellite broadband services through reselling Direcway and Starband and the reselling of Iridium services.

“There are two fundamental applications we are looking at,” Knape told Satellite News. “One is an auto-deploy approach, which typically would be a first responder command center application.”

The auto-deploy service would initiate when a first responder mobile command center arrives at an emergency site, Knape said. The auto-deploy antenna acquires the satellite and establishes the uplink. At the same time, the Wi-Fi network is set up in the immediate area.

This mobile network “gives us the capability of providing whatever networking capability [first responders] need on the ground,” Knape said. WCC is receiving “a fair amount of interest” from various government organizations, ranging from local organizations on the state and county level up to federal agencies involved with homeland security.

The mobile application also has use in the commercial sector, such as in a heavy construction site in a remote area, Knape said. “They drop one of these portable offices [with a satellite-enabled Wi-Fi system] in place, and site workers instantly have high-speed broadband uplink for their business purposes and immediate access via Wi-Fi to the corporate networks.”

The mobile side of the business already has signed up its first customer, Knape said. The Mopar unit of Daimlerchrysler attached a mobile VSAT station to its traveling promotions trailer for the recent Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals in Denver (NHRA is the association that governs drag racing in the United States). The Mopar racing team used the mobile network to keep its crews in constant communication, enabling them to maximize resources during the event, Knape said.

WCC also is looking at certain fixed locations to deploy the satellite-enabled Wi-Fi service. “We still have a lot of sites throughout the United States that don’t have access to any kind of terrestrial broadband, like RV parks, truck stops, state and federal parks, where you have fixed location but a transient client base coming through,” Knape said.

The Bottom Line

Knape expects this new partnership to have an immediate effect on WCC’s revenues. “In the next 12 months, we expect [revenues from offering satellite-enabled Wi-Fi] to represent in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 percent of revenues,” he said. “It is a nice adjunct to our core business.”

Knape did not offer specific predictions on how the additional revenues would be split, “but my personal opinion is we will see a two-to-one ratio of governmental versus industrial applications because of the immediate need to provide communications for homeland security and first responders.”

–Gregory Twachtman

(Weldon Knape, WCC, 480-857-6656)