Avanti Communications Share Discussion Threads

[geheimnis2] 19/9/2011 19:21

thanks G

does anyone have the note in which the defence proc was mentioned (i think it may have been edison research)

[gorvachof] 19/9/2011 19:05

Geh,
The Bduk has four primary goals,
1. To ensure delivery of the 2Mbps Universal Service Commitment within the lifetime of this parliament (2015).
2. To ensure this country has the best superfast broadband in Europe by the end of this parliament (2015).
3. To ensure the efficient use of funding to deliver Universal Service Commitment and Superfast Broadband.
4. To assist other Government initiatives which are dependent upon customers' ability to access Broadband based services.


Kent received funding £9.87m in the initial round (far short of what they hoped). £1.5m of this is being allocated to the USC. Along with Avanti there are apparently three other companies qualified for these pilots. I assume once up and running, subject to analysis (i.e. demand, aggregation, cost, ecomonics) at least one or all of these companies will be given further funding. Whether this would come from the councils own investment, European funding or further BDUk funding I don't know.

The government are carrying out their own pilot projects in North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Herefordshire, and the Highlands and Islands.
As per supergs post, Allpay have already been named by Hereford Council to benefit from their pilot scheme, and so more than likely will be competition for future funding. As I said before by BDUKs own framework guidelines, in terms of population density satellite is last in line behind wireless solutions.

So it all depends on how important you value the funding towards Avantis business model. The major positive here is that for whatever reason Avanti is the sole satellite provider, whilst the negative is that Avanti does have competition, at least from a funding point view.

With regards to US procurement, In my opinion it's unlikely that it will complete in the near future, If I remember correctly the US had a number of delayed launches and have recently announced the procurement for 2 more satellites, surely any procuring of commercial capacity will depend on progress in these quarters or at least until Hylas2 is launched?
That said, an interesting and rather bullish article here on this subject.
www.defencetalk.com/budget-turmoil-changing-military-satellite-buying-priorities-36847

[yorgi] 19/9/2011 15:40

Piadda the church steeple idea is no competition to the satellite and there are many houses around the UK and Europe that are nowhere near any church steeples in my opinion it is a red herring put around by the AVN doubters looking for support for their theory.

[piadda] 19/9/2011 13:57

I doubt if the church steeple idea is as straight forward as it sounds. I live in Swindon and we were meant to receive 'free' wireless broadband a couple of years ago. I believe technical issues mean it still hasn't moved out the pilot area.

[1356] 19/9/2011 13:44

Forecasts as per Digital Look... not always reliable:

AVN Forecasts

Year Ending Revenue (£m) Pre-tax (£m) EPS P/E PEG EPS Grth. Div Yield
30-Jun-11 5.93 (12.97) (13.50)p n/a n/a n/a n/a 0.0%
30-Jun-12 27.05 5.05 4.23p 73.3 n/a n/a n/a 0.0%

It's also worth noting the applications for AVN's satellites. I think business continuity and corporate data networks could drive the most revenue in the future. So not dependent on what I presume is the competitative and lower-margin residential market:

HYLAS 1 Applications:
Broadband Internet access
Resilient high-speed corporate data networks
Remote site telemetry
IP and Interactive regional TV
GSM and mobile data backhaul
Broadcast
Business Internet Continuity

[superg1] 19/9/2011 13:35

My slant on that contract is that they are struggling for customers so are putting in low prices on tenders for small contracts.

Go back to the pre launch hype and all the confidence of filling Hylas 1 within a year. As for £5 mill profit in 2012, where has that come from?

£5m profit 15 PE 88p. So why are their surprises.

The current price factors in £17m profits on a 15 PE, and the £7.50 highs £42m profit per year.

At the moment there are no profits, and no forseeable profits. Perhaps the next finance and performance updates will shed some light on where it is going next.

Where there were no obvious competitors of note pre-launch, there is a growing number now.

Don't forget those not-spot locations, generally have people earning well below the average wage, who won't want to pay high prices for satellite broadband.

A perfect example for this issue is the linked Herefordshire. But local innovation by using Church steeples is solving the issue, not satellites

[1356] 19/9/2011 13:12

This is without a doubt the strangest share I've invested in. I'm long Avanti and bullish on the long-term prospects for the market of mobile data infrastructure. But investors, like me, have been bamboozled by how to value the company. One that's forecast to make £5m profit by June 2012, currently with a market cap of £240m!

But what's really frustrating is that the brokers can't work it out either. Look at the variance in these price targets - I've not known anything like it:

14-Sep-11 Avanti Communications Group AVN Merchant Securities Sell 300.00p 264.00p - Reiteration
12-Sep-11 Avanti Communications Group AVN Daniel Stewart Buy 300.00p 2,525.00p - Reiteration

Roll on Oct 3, and then, afterwards, some predictions for EPS growth and profit growth for year ending 2013 too...

It's high time we had FIGURES to work with, not SPECULATION.

[yorgi] 19/9/2011 09:42

Quite so Dunluce.

[dunluce] 19/9/2011 09:26

With regard to the RNS on the 16th - my take is that it is very positive.... AVN being the only satellite broadband provider . The value of the contract is small and AVN's portion a % of this - however where satellite is the only option then this goes to AVN - as others have noted it shows that AVN is included in the potential solutions to the issue of not spots.

[superg1] 18/9/2011 11:56

Hereford has some of the slowest broadband connection speeds in the whole of the UK and so IT firm Allpay has stepped forward to install the signal boosters on steeples to help deliver better services to the local community, reports the Hereford Times.

Having faster connections could enable local businesses to be more competitive, while also enabling domestic users to download media content at a quicker rate.

Tony Killeen, founder of Allpay, told the paper: "We now have a wonderful opportunity to broadband-enable the most remote areas of our county without the need for telecommunications masts and cables."

[superg1] 18/9/2011 11:52

xMax delivers robust, rapidly deployable wireless services on demand. This carrier-grade mobile VoIP and mobile broadband system can dynamically access both licensed and free (unlicensed) available radio frequencies opportunistically. By design, the system incorporates a scalable quality of service for real-time applications, with voice capacities exceeding all 3G/4G protocols.

[geheimnis2] 17/9/2011 15:46

anyone know when the US military procurement exercise (which could use Hylas2) is supposed to complete?

[geheimnis2] 17/9/2011 15:39

dodge

i dont fully understand the rural bb scheme but it would seem to me that the £1.5m for kent is the subsidy from the government rather than the entire revenue opportunity - just because you are in a not spot doesnt mean you get free satellite broadband (paid for by the state).

any other views?

[dodge meister] 16/9/2011 14:26

Well a portion of £1.5m isnt exactly a game changer, it seems to be as Greengiant says.

[pojscott] 16/9/2011 14:01

The problem seems to me that whenever they announce good news the S/P goes down,????????????????????

[gorvachof] 16/9/2011 13:00

Avanti qualified with three other companies for this particular round of funding.

[greengiant] 16/9/2011 12:57

Frustrating is a word. Today's announcement seems to be a contradiction of only announcing significant wins. Oh well, roll on results.

gg

[2vdm] 16/9/2011 11:57

Well said hywel. In many of my other stocks the bb's are forever complaining about lack of news from mngt. It would be reasonable to suppose as BlackberryDrop has said that AVN have/are in discussion with other councils, many of which will be looking for solutions in the "not" spots.Also,the overall market is still heavily down with US figures/Euro/ PIGS probs still very much out there.

Every contract counts, because as well as a further income stream it has a snowball effect and you can bet that if AVN get a few council contracts agreed, others will be attracted by the mere fact that other councils have gone to AVN

Results are due out 3rd Oct I think and then we are only 6/7 months away from H2 launch. Like Yorgi I have held these for a long time and have a pile of these at well over £6.I'm fairly confident as a LTH.Only my view, but the real threat is someone else finding a better technology, but entry costs would be high.

[yorgi] 16/9/2011 10:14

Good points Blue forever and Blackberry :-)

[blackberrydrop] 16/9/2011 10:02

I totally agree Blue Forever.

The contract seems to be a decent enough size and with the Government allocating Kent a further £10m in August for broadband rollout it is probably a first step. Also, Kent is just one of dozens of county councils in the UK that have been allocated Government money for broadband (over £500m in August alone). All of those councils will currently be going through a similar process to Kent and I think it's a pretty fair assumption that we'll see Avanti getting its fair share of the action and lots more of these kinds of contracts.

I think the most important point is that it shows they can win business in rural broadband. That's been something that the "sell" analysts have been harping on about and this lays that to rest. I think it's particually amusing that Merchant Securities have been proved wrong in a matter of days. I wonder if this is some sort of record? lol!

[blue forever] 16/9/2011 09:37

Actually,I think the whole point of the rns is to show that Avanti are very much part of the Governments strategy to make broadband more accessible in the UK.

[gnnmartin] 16/9/2011 08:40

My reaction was the same as Someuwin & yorgi. Still, that's just Avanti doing what shareholders clamour for, and putting out 'good news'. Still, it doesn't doesn't say anything bad: it just doesn't say anything much.
Nigel Martin

[yorgi] 16/9/2011 07:38

It does appear to stretch the words "contract win" I have to agree Someuwin.

But it all adds up if there are enough small sales.

[yorgi] 16/9/2011 07:36

I wonder how many other councils AVN in discussion with or tendering for similar contracts k0108356.

The share price does seem rather stuck around the low 300's but lets hope todays RNS will help us have a "blue" day.