As the telecommunications industry continues to blur lines that traditionally have separated different trade segments, competitive access providers are poised to be active players. But CAPs already are distinguishing themselves through a variety of niche-market, wireless endeavors.
Denver-based IntelCom Group Inc. offers teleport and competitive access services, but no one product or discipline defines the company, rather a strategic pursuit of emerging and complementary technologies and applications.
“This is more of a marketing and sales company than a technology company,” explained Dean Nelson, manager of marketing communications.
In 1991, ICG began offering alternative access service, enabling people calling long-distance to bypass the higher costs of access through local telephone companies. Long-distance providers benefit most from competitive access services. When a local telco provides access for a long-distance call, nearly 50 cents of every $1 the caller pays to the long-distance provider is returned to the local telco for that access, ICG said. ICG operates CAP networks in 30 U.S. cities, making it the third largest CAP in the nation. ICG’s wireless enterprise, specifically teleport-based satellite services, encompasses areas of engineering and design, regional and international private network operations management and broadcast services in a number of niche markets. The company has teleport stations-satellite hubs collecting, interpreting and transmitting information-in Denver, Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles.
Circumventing land-based access charges, the teleports enable lower-cost routing for transmission services around the world, ICG said. Denver’s geographic location makes it one of the few U.S. teleports that can transmit to any of four continents through a single satellite uplink, the company commented, which results in improved transmission quality and reduced costs.
ICG provides data streams accommodating massive amounts of information to major maritime industries, Nelson said. Services include global positioning data, inventory management, diagnostics, weather information, stock quotes and video, as well as voice communications. Aboard ship, data is received on a gyroscopically stabilized satellite dish.
Maritime Telecommunication Network, acquired by ICG earlier this year through CresComm Telecommunications Services Inc., provides international digital wireless voice and data services to a number of large cruise lines and has tested a sea-based earth station with the U.S. Navy.
When ICG bought Nova-Net Communications last November in a deal valued at almost $9 million, it acquired a company with the key elements of “a good technology and good customer base,” as Nelson put it. The Nova-Net subsidiary provides cost-effective two-way VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) networks to customers in the oil and gas, electric and power, environmental monitoring and wholesale and retail trade industries, ICG said.
Powered by the sun, Nova-Net’s VSATs can be located in rural areas and communicate wirelessly. Here’s how it works: A client company attaches remote monitoring devices to its pipelines, carrying gas, for instance. The devices forward information such as temperature or pressure quotas via cable modem to a nearby VSAT unit, which signals an ICG satellite over spread spectrum frequency. An ICG teleport collects and either responds to pipeline activity automatically-managed by a computer with preprogrammed parameters-or passes the information to the gas company, which executes necessary maintenance and adjustments.
Traditionally, VSATs cost between $3,000 and $8,000 per unit, a high price to pay when transmitting simple and often small amounts of data, according to Nelson. Nova-Net, however, has designed radios to offer VSATs adjunct support. Instead of the VSAT reading the monitor directly, the radios detect the data, transmit to the VSAT, and the process continues. A VSAT site equipped with three or four radios costs about $1,500, Nelson said.
ICG’s satellite transmission and management service is targeted to companies that do business in rural areas or across vast distances, but don’t produce heavy volumes of data.
ICG is attempting to cross international waters in its latest endeavor. Perhaps the most liberal telecommunications environment in South America, Chile has become the testbed for a potentially explosive market, said Nelson. Scarce availability of landline phone service has created heavy analog cellular usage, approaching 100 percent. Consequently, digital cellular and personal communications, satellite and other telecommunications services face bright prospects.
At this stage in the game, ICG is exploring its options, indicated Nelson, identifying major American companies located in the region and investigating opportunities to gain market share in video and data communications through competitive access services and teleport-based satellite services.
