8:00 am

Stephen A. Blum
President
Tellus Venture Associates

Steve Blum, president of Tellus Venture Associates, will present some findings on direct-to-consumer satellite services. He'll briefly look at the historical results and the current status of existing satellite television and radio projects, as well as future projections, and then discuss the outlook for consumer Internet services via satellite. Of particular interest will be DirecPC and Starband, and the prospects those companies have for success in the consumer Internet service arena.

8:15 am

Dick Bakker
Vice President
SpaceBridge Semiconductor

The satellite industry in general, and the VSAT industry specifically, has been hampered by the preponderance of proprietary systems, special assembly construction, with resulting low volumes. This has been further exacerbated by the low level of standards participation. Our perspective is that the satellite industry will not achieve any significant share of the Internet access market until:

1) standards for "satellite oriented", "over-the-air" protocols are adapted by various manufacturers (ie:DVB-RCS);

2) ASIC Chips (Application Specific Integrated Chips) are readily available to incorporate the air interface protocols;

3) integrated use of RF and Digital Chips is used to a much greater extent by the satellite industry.

Six years ago the Cable industry had no participation in Internet access and was perceived as unsuitable for two-way Internet access. This was changed through the use of cable-oriented protocols and cable specific Chips. Through these two developments, the key technical issues were solved, the volume increased and the functionality improved. This session will discuss how the same issues have to be addressed in the satellite industry.

9:00 am

Jim Stratigos
Vice President
EchoStar Data Networks

EchoStar was the first company in the world to offer its subscribers satellite television and two-way Internet via the same dish. In partnership with StarBand, EchoStar is using its network of more than 20,000 dealers to distribute both services to consumers. The challenge for providers is no longer whether the technology will work - it does, but how to effectively market, distribute and install the technology and service the customer.

"There will be a lot of parallels with adoption of digital satellite for television, like DirecTV and EchoStar."
  
                   - Patti Reali
                     Senior Analyst for Dataquest

Christopher Baugh
Principal Analyst
Northern Sky Research, LLC

Jose del Rosario
Strategic Analyst & Program Leader,
Satellite Communications
Frost & Sullivan

Karekin Jelalian
Senior Analyst
The Strategis Group

Phil McAlister
Director
Futron Corporation

Satellite-Internet revenues are predicted to grow sharply over the next 3-5 years. But where will this growth be greatest? Will two-way consumer service be as successful as DBS? How will overall demand for bandwidth affect the potential for satellite-delivered services?

Doug Humphrey
Chairman, CEO & Founder
Cidera, Inc.

Doug Humphrey's Streaming "Top Ten" List:

1. There's NO streaming tsunami about to hit us.
2. It's about the Business Model—Content Provider must make money.
3. Broadcasting is here to stay—interactivity enhances the experience.
4. Get on board The Enterprise—that's where broadband users are today.
5. Don't get wild about wireless streaming—it has a long way to go.
6. It takes two to tango—networks, that is: terrestrial + satellite.
   (more to come)

"52% of U.S. homes are in areas that can't be served by land-based broadband and it's expected to drop only to 33% by 2004."
                                     - The Kagan Group

James Carlin
CTO
Loral Skynet

Chris Schram
Vice President, Satellite Plans and Procurement
New Skies Satellites

Larry Whitmeyer
Board of Directors
Global VSAT Forum
Director of Satellite Correspondent Relations
Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications

Satellite-based Internet services have been linking remote areas to the U.S. backbone for years. Now, two-way DTH services and ka-band platforms are poised to reach the less-developed areas of first-world countries of North America, South America and Europe. These offerings also hold the potential to compete with terrestrial services.

Mike Cook
Vice President and General Manager, Spaceway Division
Hughes Network Systems

Stephen Rochereau
Managing Director
SpaceVest

D.K. Sachdev
President
SpaceTel Consultancy

Financing for technology projects has become more difficult over the past 12 months. And the public equity markets are clearly not as receptive to new offerings. So how do satellite Internet projects get access to the capital they require? Are infrastructure plays what the venture guys are now looking for? How are the consumer services, including new two-way Internet services, viewed by Wall Street? Which ventures will emerge as survivors and which will get kicked out of the market?