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Blog 'starband' » StarBand Rebrand: Nova Goes for 'High End'

As read on www.skyreports.com

They may not get the attention that cable modems and DSL services have drawn on Wall Street of late, but satellite broadband services are alive and kicking. Such is the implication of today's news that sat broadband service provider StarBand is relaunching itself as a top end product for the SOHO market.

The new StarBand Nova service announcement comes just 18 months after StarBand was acquired by Spacenet, a subsidiary of Gilat. According to Spacenet Executive Director of Consumer and Small Office Business Steve D'Argenio, new technology forms a key component of StarBand Nova service.

"We've switched to a new hardware platform which is the Gilat Skyedge VSAT, the same VSAT used for enterprise services," he says. With that new hardware in place, the company "will be able to demonstrate a higher reliability, more industrial strength service."

Available in two flavors (StarBand Nova Pro and StarBand Nova Ultimate) the service will have monthly charges of $49.99 and $129.99 respectively, with download speeds as high as 1024 Kbps, and upload speeds to 256 Kbps. Equipment costs for the Nova service have been reduced to a suggested retail price of $299 - down from the $699 typically charged for previous StarBand equipment.

In positioning the new service as the high end provider, D'Argenio said StarBand does not need to target the mass market thanks to leased (as opposed to owned) satellite space. "The other guys have to fill their transponders," the executive said. "We don't have that kind of financial pressure on us. We can grow at a measured pace."

For more information on retail incentives, see the article in today's SkyRETAILER <»www.skyretailer.com>.

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