Connectivity on wheels
When Robert Berg Jr. pitched his idea for a mobile media and Internet center three to four years ago, potential investors told him that if it was such a good idea, somebody else would have done it. Then came Hurricane Katrina. Now even the feds are interested.
Berg’s company, Pivotal Satellite Technologies Inc., is a 10-year-old Framingham-based satellite provider. For years, its bread and butter was to provide uplinks to TV and radio stations, companies, schools and hospitals. But the June debut of the 7,600-pound Mobile Communications Portal, which can deploy at a moment’s notice, providing VoIP, Internet service, streaming audio/video, and wireless ATM service, has captured the interest of entities as diverse as the federal Department of Homeland Security, Nokia and The Domestic Bank.
Berg, now a 20-year veteran in the satellite broadcast business, was only weeks into writing the business plan for the MCP on Sept. 11, 2001. The equipment capabilities of the MCP (see box) could have replaced the entire Internet and phone infrastructure of the fallen World Trade Center, Berg says. It can also broadcast audio-video to Yahoo, which redigitizes it and feeds it to the web, and can provide wireless ATM and WiFi.
The Department of Homeland Security is currently exploring the potential of the MCP as a remote-site communications hub. But it isn’t only for disasters. It’s for sports events, trade shows and company meetings. For years, Pivotal Satellite has provided a cafeteria of discrete remote-location services at lower costs than many alternatives, from offsite ATMs, T-1 line hookups, web access, virtual private networks and videoconferencing, but never before in a single unit.The original $1.5 million-design was considered too much of a risk, Berg says. The current unit cost $460,000 and rents at a starting cost of $6,000 per day. Put in the perspective of five-figure-per-day business interruption costs for a midsize to large company, or the cost of land-based temporary phone and Internet service, that figure represents savings. "We’re emerging into a market where people did without, or they paid a very extravagant price [for services]," Berg says. "We want this to work. We’re very scalable, small to large."
Richard McKinney agrees. He’s a senior account executive for Akron, OH-based Skycasters LLC, which supplies the network used by Pivotal Satellite. He characterizes Pivotal Satellite as a company that blends capabilities, thereby taking advantage of the rapidly-expanding technology alternatives in telecom and its rapidly-shrinking equipment size and price. He says a piece of equipment Skycaster sold three years ago for $6,000 now costs $1,500. The good news: This puts sophisticated telecom systems within the reach of many emergency responders who a few years ago would not have had a budget for it.
It opens similar possibilities for event planners. To date, anyone wanting to install a temporary T-1 line for a large meeting, business expo, trade show, or media event has had to contract with Verizon on the same price structure as a year’s usage, a cost which can run $12,000 to $15,000 for a temporary installation. Things aren’t necessarily
better if the venue already has a T-1 line, without the IT personnel to handle the connections. Pivotal Satellite provides two engineers on the site 24/7 for the duration of the job.
Skycaster’s McKinney says he doesn’t see any "killer aps" in telecommunications, but the variety of solutions available to smaller operators such as Pivotal Satellite will make the market more nimble. Telecommunications continues to evolve at "a ridiculously fast pace," he says. "I thought it was going to slow down, but it hasn’t."
WBJ Web Partners
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