Avanti Communications Share Discussion Threads

[m.t.glass] 13/12/2010 07:30

It's a bit misleading of Arquiva to refer to "the Preseli mountains in west Wales". They are mostly called the Preseli Hills. They do sometimes get labelled mountains, and I guess it suits Arquiva to have people thinking they are addressing tough territory. Compared with much of Wales, Pembrokeshire is actually quite gentle rolling countryside. Relatively tame territory.

Wales has numerous areas in which hills and mountains are steeply and deeply folded, and where tv and mobile phone signals within the valleys are dreadful or non-existent. Even very close to major connurbations. I would be more impressed if Arquiva were claiming successful services there. I am not surprised they focus on Pembrokeshire, but I doubt they will bother trying to serve the truly difficult (and very numerous) non-spots in Wales. Satellite sounds a much better prospect.

[superg1] 12/12/2010 20:30

Revenues from Hylas 1. What do they amount to??? An estimate. You can right off £33m per year from 2012 for 7 years. By the time Hylas 1 reaches capacity all it does is pay for Hylas 2 in real terms.

Hylas 2 looks a much better prospect with it's capacity giving a much better return. Of the £70m raised £57m paid off the old high rate 'loan'.

Somehow probably £200m plus needs to be raised for Hylas 3. Surely much of that will come via dilution and is covered in the annual report, although they say they will try and keep the dilution to a minimum.

Does everyone think there is no risk and Hylas 2 and 3 will go up on time with no hitches and work perfectly. Somewhere in all of this they are claiming quick dividends????.

Potentially a very good company, but working on figures for satellites yet to be launched or even built.

Deramp team trying to get in??? ho ho.

[deltar] 12/12/2010 20:23

I think the earlier post on white-space and the FCC is a tad out of date. This is more recent.

[2350220] 12/12/2010 19:44

Someone on here was asking about whether you'd need a transmit dish as well as a receiver dish. In my experience of talking/working with Satellite uplink engineers at SIS mobiles, that isn't the case at all.
So long as you use different frequencies for the uplink and the downlink, you can use the one dish for both.

That's what we used to have when I worked on Outside Broadcasts, and I think Avanti would have to have a screw loose to not use full Duplex transmission!
Very standard practice.

Hope this helps.
Yours,
John W

[malcolmmm] 12/12/2010 17:14

The market is so big that there is plenty of capacity to expand even with opposition


Some news reports on the launch have noted that Avanti is to soon face competition from Eutelsat, which has its own net-dedicated Ka-band satellite scheduled for launch in late December. However, the key point in relation to this is the size of the estimated market - for 2Mb satellite broadband products in the markets served by Avanti, this is estimated at more than 100 million households. Hylas 1 has been stated to have the capacity to serve up to 350,000 broadband customers and, what is to be the company's second satellite, Hylas 2, up to 1 million such customers. Avanti is also differentiated by offering military and virtual network (letting customers manage their own switches) capability and having its second Ka-band satellite underway (which will offer redundancy). Indeed, Avanti hopes the Eutelsat launch will be a positive for it – in creating more PR and marketing noise to open the satellite broadband market faster.

[yorgi] 12/12/2010 17:13

Derampers can have their fun :-) Avanti will do the talking.

Good post Malcommm

[malcolmmm] 12/12/2010 17:05

There are strong buys from at least three brokers and from at least 3 tip sheets including the Times.
I think its always best to look at the facts and not fanciful unproven ideas that will most prob cost a fortune and never get off the ground. Note the huge untapped marked bit with most forcasting a £20-£25sp

Avanti are up and running and the contracts keep coming in

Avanti Communications* (AVN) has announced it has signed a 3 year managed services contract with Spanish service provider Network & Satellite Systems de España, for services to be delivered via Avanti's Hylas 1 satellite. No financial information was provided but the announcement continues the stream of positive operating newsflow from Avanti since its Hylas 1 satellite was successfully launched – with Chief Exec David Williams noting this latest announcement shows "sales momentum in the enterprise and media sector continuing to grow".

Avanti Communications* (AVN) has announced results for its year ended 30th June 2010 as well as a five year, $15.5 million contract with international satellite service provider TigrisNet – the first sale involving a customer commitment to both the Hylas 1 and 2 satellites, with Avanti seeing likely "excellent growth" with TigrisNet beyond this initial contract.

The results themselves are pretty immaterial in the context of the successful launch last week of Avanti's first satellite, 'Hylas 1'. For the record, revenue was 27.7% lower at £5.82 million as the company stopped selling its rented satellite capacity based interim service as the Hylas 1 launch approached. At year end net debt stood at £15.22 million, though the balance sheet has subsequently been strengthened by a £70 million placing.

The company is now focusing on the sale of further capacity on Hylas 1 and 2, the launch of Hylas 2 and the project financing of further satellites. On expectations of three years to fill Hylas 1 capacity and five years for Hylas 2, the company notes "it appears that the markets we serve are more than strong enough to achieve this many times over".

With Hylas 1 currently undergoing 'in-orbit acceptance', the company notes "procurement with Hylas 2 has proceeded well... We remain on target to launch this satellite in Spring 2012". The construction, launch and operation of Hylas 2 is fully financed – with the associated debt repayable over a seven year period from December 2012. The company sees the filling of its first two satellites quickly putting it "in a position to offer cash returns to shareholders and efficiently finance more satellites... We have enough spectrum available to launch perhaps 20 satellites".

Avanti Chairman John Brackenbury surmises "Avanti now has one satellite in orbit and a second launching in a little over a year, a very strong balance sheet with no debt service payments or cash flow covenants falling due until December 2012, huge untapped markets and a quite thrilling opportunity to create a company of genuine scale".

[blue forever] 12/12/2010 16:50

Filter button works very well !

[ib1905] 12/12/2010 16:46

nice one restassured lol

[restassured] 12/12/2010 16:35

The pack has arrived.They love to try and cloud the truth and conveniently failed to mention two brokers have forecasts averaging £24

The pattern is always the same.Try and sow seeds of doubt.Tell everyone that they are wrong and the technology is defunct.

One can but laugh.

I have around 60 stocks in my portfolio and I see this all the time.Unfortunately anyone off the street can come onto these boards and post whatever they want.

Last week they were urinating on Churchill's statue,today they are Satellite communications experts.

[superg1] 12/12/2010 16:19

Jimbo

Deramping team. ??????

Weildy (iii) asked my opinion as he invested on the Friday prelaunch. I had a look, thought much of Hylas 1 and 2 was priced in and suggested he should get out between 8 and 8.30 once the rise stalls as I thought it would retrace. What great advice that turned out to be, especially with the wild claims on iii.

Having challenged the wild claims (£10 Monday, Hylas 2 10 times the capacity of Hylas 1 £400m to £500m profits). I was set upon. Posters with connections with the company.

Opinion and observations of incorrect information isn't deramping. What is everyone elses opinion then 'ramping'. Ramping in strict terms is false information, my info wasn't false so it doesn't fit that word. Much of the hype was false though and technically is subject to legal action.

Team??? team of one, and just sharing thoughts for those to be cautious and not get caught up on the false parts on there.

Thankfully a few others have noted the various competition and made informative posts on it.

As I've said before it would have been nice if Hylas 1 had been the capacity of Hylas 2.

Nobdoy seems to mention the dilution of shares to come re Hylas 3 but it's in the annual report. How much of a dilution that will be I don't know. revenues are a way off yet and Hylas 1 revenues probably don't cover the loan payment starting in 2012.

Sorry for the caution but there is a lot more muscle around to exploit this technology. Eutel for instance who launch soon.

[jimbo55] 12/12/2010 15:48

Quite an interesting debate on this same subject ocurring, with apparently the same people, on the iii bulletin boards. Well worth taking a look at for anybody here. Personally, I'm of the opinion an organised deramping team has arrived. The fact this has happened off the back of that HB downgrade is just too much of a coincidence. Would not surprise me in the slightest if a larger player wants in on the cheap now the company has been derisked.

On the use of white space, the following article from 2007, posted by a iii user, is quite interesting:



You either believe Satellite Broadband has a rosy future, or you don't. The fact that Hylas 2 is going to be aimed at much of Africa and the Middle East speaks volumes. How many old analogue and ex-military communications towers are you going to find in Africa.........?

[urvnme] 12/12/2010 15:09

superg1 .... those Avon prices are a rip off. £199 to set up a sat dish? Freesat TV costs about £70 and my Vfast was £65 set up.

[rico_suave] 12/12/2010 14:56

i'm hungry

[urvnme] 12/12/2010 14:55

Jimbo ... you may be correct about Cumbria, I just don't know. My VFast transmitter is about 20 miles away near Canterbury. I'm told that VFast are using ex MOD trasmision towers as the MOT switch to satallite. I don't know how much of the country the MOD would have covered but I believe VFast have already done the same in N Ireland as we have in Kent. Don't know if there is intended expansion or if that is it. BTW, VFast also get a grant from Kent County Council so that could possibly end at sometime. All that matters to me is cheap fast internet and I don't care who provides it.

[malcolmmm] 12/12/2010 14:37

There's a huge market in Europe and Africa for Hylas sats to tap into not just GB, TV receptions are poor or non existent in lots of area's, I couldn't receive in West Lulworth because of the hills, there are a lot of if's and but's concerning White Space which may or may not eventually work in 5 to 10 years time , satellite looks to be the better option and will also be used by the military, BT etc etc. Avanti obviously thinks they are onto a winner and so do their banks, fund mangers etc

[yorgi] 12/12/2010 11:53

Good point Jonnib. I don't think AVN has a problem, quite happy to be holding, hills, valleys and trees will not affect satellite I still see a strong future for AVN.

[jonnib] 12/12/2010 11:48

I agree...if all this info has been available for years why are so many people still not getting suitable broadband? As for the analogue signal, as jimbo suggests if you dont live within a suitable distance of a tower you wont receive the signal...and most towers are situated near big cities/towns where people already receive broadband. I work for an electrical outlet and i can tell you that lots of people still cant receive freeview for reasons as simple as there house has trees around it!! let alone people who live in valleys..

[jimbo55] 12/12/2010 11:27

superg1, I'd suggest those prices might be coming down now Hylas is up. Avonline and Avanti do have a partnership, but those current packages would have been dependent on Avanti's rented capacity on older non-specific communications satellites. See:



Regarding the vfast broadband options, it currently only appears to be available to Kent, and would require you to have line of sight on a tower. What would you do if you were living in the middle of rural (and hilly) Cumbria? How does vfast differ from 3g broadband? You must still be within spitting distance of a tower.

Interesting that these posts start to appear within a few days of the HB note. Hmmmm.....

[superg1] 12/12/2010 11:12

URVNME

A link for you for Sat BB. make usre you are sitting down first