INTERVIEW


Join the satellite broadband revolution


14


A Q&A with Ed Sawday from satellite broadband service provider, konnect.


S


atellite broadband has developed a lot in recent years and there are now great opportunities for electrical retailers to offer exciting new services to consumers. ERT’s Jack Cheeseman


learns more from Ed Sawday, Head of Sales for new satellite broadband service, konnect.


Q&A


Q: Can you explain how satellite has changed/innovated in recent years? Ed Sawday: Historically, the perception of satellite broadband has been poor and usually people are unaware of what it is and what it can do. Often looked at as an expensive and slower solution to terrestrial services, satellite broadband has had a raw deal. However, in recent years the product has come


on a long way and now offers a great, high quality solution to customers who live in locations unable to connect to superfast broadband. Our new konnect service offers superfast


broadband, no matter where you live via the brand new KONNECT satellite, which became operational at the end of 2020. In a short period of time we have transformed the customer proposition from an expensive, niche product to a very affordable, high-performance solution appealing to the mainstream market and right for mainstream retailers.


Q: What is the market opportunity? ES: In short – it is huge! There is a great opportunity to help people across England,


Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who are struggling to get a decent broadband connection. According to media regulator, Ofcom, 10Mbps


is the bare minimum speed requirement for a modern household. There are over half a million homes in the UK that receive broadband speeds of less than 10Mbps, while 23 per cent of homes and businesses have poor indoor 4G coverage from any of the mobile networks and 12 per cent of rural properties lack access to any decent broadband service. It is also important to point out that low speeds are not confined to rural areas. In fact, the sales opportunity is far greater than


this. Connections are frequently poor in urban areas and the difference in speeds between the suburbs and inner cities can be great. The opportunity is for konnect and its reseller partners to bring superfast satellite broadband to these premises.


Q: What benefits does konnect deliver to the customer? ES: konnect satellite broadband offers a congestion-free service with speeds of up to 100Mbps, with 150Mbps recently achieved in test environments. This showcases the technical capabilities of konnect satellite broadband and its role in helping bridge the digital divide, turning the ‘not spots’ into hot spots as we move to konnect VHTS, which will be available early 2023. Today, packages start from as low as £29.99


with no equipment costs, no standard installation charge, no data caps or data “addons” and a contract length of just 12 months. It really is a strong customer proposition and


unlike anything consumers will have seen in the past. And it is available to everyone, now!


You can also learn more about this in more detail with Ed Sawday in the next issue of ERT, where we will be exploring the changing landscape of satellite broadband and how retailers can capitalise on this.


Q: What is the opportunity for electrical retailers? ES: We’re on the lookout for electrical retailers who would like to partner with us and retail our product. In return we offer very attractive commission rates, if the partner does the installation we also pay very attractive rates for doing the install, with additional payments covering any non-standard installation costs. If you don’t want to get involved in the installation that’s no problem, we’ll look after it. And once the customer is hooked-up to


superfast broadband there’s a whole new opportunity in cross-selling products that benefit from high speed connection such as smart TVs, IoT devices, CCTV monitoring and lots more.


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