Yesterday we announced that ViaSat selected Alianza to power their newly launched Exede Voice residential phone service. Given integration, customization, and control we provide, this is not outsourcing VoIP and it isn’t a white label approach either. ViaSat embraced a whole new approach: cloud sourcing VoIP.
This partnership and product launch have been in the works for over two years and we can now share the successful launch publicly. It doesn’t normally take nearly that long for our customers to roll-out voice services based on our cloud voice platform (the average is closer to 4 months), but in this case we think the wait was worth it.
ViaSat’s voice launch was not solely done in an effort to increase APRU—as great as that is. ViaSat is strategically setting out to redefine how satellite services are positioned. They want to take satellite broadband from the “connectivity of last resort” to a full featured, competitive alternative to the traditional fixed and terrestrial broadband providers. This initiative started with the launch of ViaSat-1; which holds the Guinness record for the world’s highest capacity communications satellite (in excess of 140 Gbit/s), more than all the satellites covering North America combined (at the time of its launch). Not only did this new satellite break new ground as far as capacity, but it also has the ability to segment traffic and provided QoS to voice at levels not previously viable (see this video for an overview of Exede). This was the game-changer and the Alianza team was excited about this new possibility.
During ViaSat’s evaluation process, we came to really respect their team, even though we often felt like they were applying the same level of diligence to our platform that they did on the rocket that carried ViaSat-1 into its precise position over 22,000 miles above Earth. But, after a detailed evaluation process Alianza was selected, primarily due to the separation that we could prove between our solution and our competition in the following key areas:
- Quality of Service – Alianza worked closely with ViaSat to provide break-through QoS that end-users have validated as being as good or better than their prior land-line experience. We helped optimize quality through packet sizing, CODEC and ATA selection and configuraiton.
- Operational Integration – Like many service providers, ViaSat has very sophisticated, but also very complex back-office systems to manage customer provisioning, fulfillment, billing, invoicing and care. Alianza’s comprehensive API provided the tools needed to quickly integrate and automate the complexities of voice management into various legacy systems. It is this integration that is enabling ViaSat to seamlessly scale their voice business in a way that minimizes the operational impact across their entire organization and delivers a consistent experience to customers.
- Business Case – Alianza’s financial model provide a clear business case that will maximize ViaSat gross margin contribution from voice and insure that their retail products stay competitive into the future.
With the launch Exede Voice, ViaSat was the first to deliver a U.S. residential VoIP service and they now deliver additional value to their subscribers with a triple-play bundle. They can compete more broadly with telcos and cable providers and capture a bigger slice of the household spend. Check out this video demonstrating the quality and features of Exede Voice.
Due to Alianza’s SaaS-based financial model, our growth and success is directly tied to our customer’s success deploying our voice services. As such, we take a long term approach to ROI, betting on customers we think will be successful throughout the next decade and beyond. As such, we like to point out that ViaSat has already announced plans to launch ViaSat-2 in mid 2016. This new satellite is anticipated to double the bandwidth economics of ViaSat-1 while simultaneously increasing its coverage footprint by seven-fold.
We are excited to be a part of ViaSat’s growth and to further change the game on satellite services!