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Posted 2 years ago
Stephen Rice, Champion
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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The last earnings call basically said there were some antenna issues but it wouldn't affect the company. Unlimited plans were announced as the standard going forward.
Today there aren't nearly as many unlimited plans available as Viasat hoped for, quality of service on Viasat 2 is hit or miss, plus there is an insurance claim that the lawyers don't want us to talk about.
It's really a shame because Viasat is a great company. Hopefully the government and commercial contracts aren't affected like us residential people are.
Regardless, I don't think it's going to be a very good earnings call. Stock is probably going to dip below $60 a share in the morning.
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http://investors.viasat.com/news-releases/news-release-details/viasat-announces-fourth-quarter-and-f...
Slide presentation:
http://investors.viasat.com/static-files/cf361714-5558-47c5-9e11-ff364f5269bc
I'll wait for the transcript to be published at Seeking Alpha - it'll probably be available before the end of the buffering ;)
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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GabeU, Champion
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Unfortunately, 98% of the beams are pointed at Perfectville - still having a population of one - but he's happy.That's beyond perfect. I love it! :)
GabeU, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Yea. That will get a lot of takers.
GabeU, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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I have been a proponent of Viasat, but this plan rollercoaster is pretty ridiculous. They change plan options like the weather. If you don't like what is offered, wait 15 minutes and it will change. No consistency, and makes no sense to the end user.
Andy, as a Viasat installer that has to satisfy customers, you have my sympathy.
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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Moments later it was announced that 98 or 99 percent of the spot beams are activated. Maybe I understood it wrong, but it sounded pretty contradictory.
There was a big emphasis on revenue from airlines. I'm guessing those technologies don't rely on spot beams to work as designed.
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/b...
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Let's see. Given the plan design and pricing offered for Viasat-2 across a lot of the country, how exactly do they plan on increasing the subscriber base?
Bev, Champion
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Yes, that works for my step son, biggest screen is a 19 inch TV and, he works long hours so, streams 1-2 hours each evening and, that usually on his phone, the TV is for a weekend movie. Bronze works for him.
I don't stream on my TV, I download for that or watch live and, 480 is fine for youtube and Twitch so, Silver works for me.
Where the new sales are going to come is if people get jobs or better paying ones and, can then afford internet in the sticks. In areas like mine, any internet is better than none and, satellite is the only option. Viasat still beats Hughes unless you're a die hard night own, then it's about equal.
They certainly can't expect a family making only 35,000 a year to fork out even 1200 of that for internet but, if that family makes 40,000 then they might do it. (35 is the average in my area.)
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Andy
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https://seekingalpha.com/article/4177027-viasat-inc-vsat-ceo-mark-dankberg-q4-2018-results-earnings-...
Stephen Rice, Champion
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Good for Viasat and it's investors.
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It looks like the problems are in the high density spot beams supplying the bandwidth to the expected 50MBs and 100MBs plans. Ultimately, most of the country may be lucky to have performance that meets Hughesnet's 25MBps plans. I guess Hughesnet must be loving the ViaSat 2 failure. From what I can tell, very few customers are switching and they've had a year to scoop up customers in all the underserved locations while Viasat 2 withered on the vine.
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You've got good, solid sales and then you have just sales. There are a lot of "just sales" going on right now.
Andy
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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IF they want to get people on 2, offer Freedom 150 nationwide for $99.
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All well and good for them. I have no great expectations from Viasat as the plan I have is ok @ 10Gb/month and 12 mb downloads. The one saving grace is that I still have unlimilted access until 8 am. Our electric co-op has been building out the fiber optic network in our county and is just across the interstate from my home. I am patient and always subscribe to the belief, "things gotta way of workin' out".....
Stephen Rice, Champion
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Risky business. Even riskier is the insurance companies that cover the space projects. The claim on the first space shuttle did a lot of financial damage. A potential claim we shall not mention or speak of could have similar consequences.
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It's very interesting how Hughesnet has supposedly less bandwidth yet they somehow have double the customers ViaSat has and is experiencing accelerated growth.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4172607-echostars-sats-ceo-michael-dugan-q1-2018-results-earnings-c...
As mentioned earlier, our total consumer base of retail, wholesale and SME subs was approximately 1.267 million as of March 31, 2018 compared to 1,043,000 as of March 31, 2017. We had net adds of approximately 59,000 subs in Q1 compared to approximately 7,500 net adds in the same quarter last year. These metrics do not include subscribers that are partners, Xplornet in Canada and StarGroup in Mexico, provide service through since these are capacity sales, but they do add to our revenue and earnings.
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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That is better than what viasat 2 can provide in most of the country right now, no?
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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To this day.. I have no, none, nada access to Viasat 2.. I have a very High Bill until my contract it up and still going on three months, I still cannot get the resolution promised for Netflix..
I try to stay positive, but over all Viasat has ultimately failed me with what has been been promised, and failing even more for what I am paying for to be delivered..
It is only made worse by all the stuff they keep boosting and proudly posting to the public about their company.. Truly I want to believe them, and I would love to be Proud of been a Viasat Customer.. but sadly I do not feel Viasat is to proud to have me as a customer.
FYI,, David on their team is still Awesome..
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Just remember. There is what is said in a corporate earnings call and then there is reality.
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We are committed to serving the best interests of our shareholders.
http://investors.viasat.com/investor-relations
The residential section is treated worse than a step-child, more like a
foster-care kid.
The bandwidth needed to fulfill a firm delivery contract is
always taken from the "wasted" bandwidth used by the residential
customers. It's seen as wasted because they are under no obligation to
deliver to us. We, the residential customers, are the users of
un-allocated bandwidth not yet reserved by a firm delivery contract. We
are where ViaSat trims the resources to deliver to them that will get their
purchased speed.
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The ViaSat load forecasters see VS2 being filled with contracts. They must discourage residential from going there to keep the resources available in the future for the firm contracts (pigs at the table). We are a nuisance to them, we are bottom-feeders.
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Bev, Champion
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I know several families in the woods around here that, were it affordable for them, would have satellite internet but, when you make only 1200.00 a month and have to support a family of 4-6 on that, even 50.00 is too much for internet for them.
Most tell me that if it were 19.99, like dial up used to be out here, then they'd get it, even if that was only 10 Gb at DSL speeds - they could do email and FaceBook without going to town and, the kids could use it for school instead of coming to my house to use my internet in the case of two of my grandkids. (And no I'm not paying their Viasat bill, I already pay their DirecTV and the cell phone for the older of the two.)
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Actions speak louder than words. When the highest plan available at my location is a 65GB $200 12Mbps plan.... that isnt as good a plan as I had available BEFORE Viasat-2.
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Is this why new subscribers aren’t materializing?New residential subs are being discouraged using price and plan qualities that make new residential subscriptions unattractive to all but the most foolhardy or desperate.
Government contracts pay more per GB than we do so who would they rather sell to? ViaSat is proper to sell big data contracts, but we are entitled by virtue of our monthly payments to a specific percentage of the satellite capability that is only for us and it should never be infringed on to sell to a higher bidder, otherwise, ViaSat should announce they DO NOT service residential and that is that. If ViaSat continues to sell to residential, ViaSat should never over-sell the residential bandwidth availability either. When peak load reaches about 100% (of the reserved bandwidth that should be in place for residential), no new subs should be added unless time-of-use incentives are put in place to encourage customers to use data at off-peak times, and never penalize customers use during peak hours. Use better incentives as needed to control peak hours demand, such as daytime free zones.
Available bandwidth can be mapped out just like the radio spectrum but showing who has what bandwidth allocated to each contract. When the slots are all filled in, where is residential? We remain the abandoned orphans. We get the "congestion" excuse so we blame each other for our poor performance which is mis-directed with purpose. The bread-crumbs into the woods trick has worked very well for ViaSat, they lead us to a false reason for our poor performance and we are assumed to be none-the-wiser about what they do to us.
In the latest earnings call, ViaSat was keen about mentioning residential subs can now get 100Mbps in select areas but failed to say how many markets have that speed or where they are, leaving the investors to assume just about everywhere, so they are also being duped. The treatment residential gets from ViaSat is very much like cities claiming how they plan to help the homeless.
The shattered promises and mis-leading false-hopes of ViaSat-2 has caused me to loose all respect for ViaSat. I now see them as nothing more than a "Typical New York Corporation." Yes, they are committed to serving the best interests of their shareholders, and will happily show the income residential is providing, but will NEVER show how our service is pitifully slow and the truth of why it is this way.
Watch the YouTube video "Viasat 30th Anniversary" and at the end, tell me you believe a single word of it. Here it is...
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Andy
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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I'm already on a good VS1 beam and am extremely happy with my Liberty 12 plan.
I have no desire to switch to VS2 and based on what Andy said, it would be a huge gamble to switch to VS2. I'm staying put.
The whole VS2 thing is confusing to me anyway.
According to the earnings call, none of the spot beams are working since they rely on the two antennas that didn't deploy. Moments later it was announced that 98 or 99 percent of the spot beams are activated.
I trust Andy more than I trust Viasat.
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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The whole problem in my humble opinion is that the ones who set policy and implement decisions don't have to face the actual customer. I do. Anytime I've had one of my reps say "just say this or that" I respond that they are MORE than welcome to work here at my store for a week and do it themselves....never have had a taker.
Andy
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The whole problem in my humble opinion is that the ones who set policy and implement decisions don't have to face the actual customer. I do. Anytime I've had one of my reps say "just say this or that" I respond that they are MORE than welcome to work here at my store for a week and do it themselves....never have had a taker.
Andy
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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It has to be incredibly frustrating to want to provide customer satisfaction but to be at the mercy of others that have to support you.
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Andy
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Maybe Viasat will just sell their residential subs to Hughesnet and focus on military and commercial customers in the air. I cpuld see that happening given their stagnant customer base, losing the Eutelsat deal, and Viasst-2 not going to reach its potential.