Orbitel/GERS

GERS also approved a 10 Million Dollar Loan for Obritel @ 10 years and I believe at 10 percent.

the $19.5 million loan to Orbitel is a 10-year loan and will be repaid with an 8.25 percent interest rate.

Click on that...

http://virginislandsdailynews.com/news/gers-loans-19-5m-to-orbitel-telecomm-company-1.1582359

and a bit more info...

http://stcroixsource.com/content/news/local-news/2013/04/06/orbitel-invest-70-million-fiber-optic-network-vi

I believe GERS has since reconsidered their initial approval and have decided not to go through with the financing at this time.

Also, Orbitel has previously secured financing through the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), a federal program administered by the Dep't. of Agriculture, I believe. Something in the $60-70 million range.

Don't have time to find/post links right now...will later if necessary.

http://www.doi.gov/oia/igia/2013/upload/43-USDA-Rural-Development-IGIA-Briefing-Report-2-26-2013.pdf

Broadband: (RUS) funded a Broadband loan in November 2012 to Orbitel for $62 million to build a
fiber-to-the-premises (“FTTP”) last-mile broadband system on the islands of St. Croix, St. John,
and St. Thomas, collectively, the Virgin Islands of the United States (“US Virgin Islands”).

Orbitel will offer broadband data, voice, and digital video service to the US Virgin Islands. In
addition, Orbitel will also be offering HD/DVR service, residential alarm monitoring, and business
webhosting service.

we need the competition... broadband is still way too expensive on this island & the profit margins from the numbers I look at are pretty damn high for ISP's

ISP's create false scarcity to justify their price gouging... limit caps where there are none needed and sub-par services abound for this tactic; we the consumer suffers.

we need the competition... broadband is still way too expensive on this island & the profit margins from the numbers I look at are pretty damn high for ISP's

ISP's create false scarcity to justify their price gouging... limit caps where there are none needed and sub-par services abound for this tactic; we the consumer suffers.

Would you like to stop by my office and see what our expenses are?
Tower rent
WAPA
Labor
Liability Insurance $5mil cap
Gas
Spares
Equipment toasted by lightning because the copper grounds were stolen
Equipment toasted by WAPA
etc.

Innovative and Choice lose money according to their Senate testimony....Broadband VI makes a profit....but we do not price gouge or have bandwidth caps. We are investing millions to double speeds again later this year / early next year.

You go, Beeski!

Why the delay in doubling the speeds?

Why the delay in doubling the speeds?

We're working out the bugs in the new technology.
Recovery Hill customers are the beta testers....hopefully they are happy....I know we are at our office in Csted.

Keep up the good work beeski...my internet-dependent company appreciates everything you do and will continue to support you!

we do not price gouge or have bandwidth caps.

and that's why I give you my monies..

however, in the same breath I will say that the US is doing pretty poorly compared to the rest of the world.

According to a recent study by Ookla Speedtest, the U.S. ranks a shocking 31st in the world in terms of average download speeds. The leaders in the world are Hong Kong at 72.49 Mbps and Singapore on 58.84 Mbps. And America? Averaging speeds of 20.77 Mbps, it falls behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Uruguay.

Its upload speeds are even worse. Globally, the U.S. ranks 42nd with an average upload speed of 6.31 Mbps, behind Lesotho, Belarus, Slovenia, and other countries you only hear mentioned on Jeopardy.

http://theweek.com/article/index/257404/why-is-american-internet-so-slow

http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/

http://stcroixsource.com/content/news/local-news/2014/06/25/government-internet-costs-dropping-due-vingn

$33.00 for 1 Mbps, That come up to $33,000.00 for 1Gbps for the government agencies (all on the one network)

The rates our local providers charge now is about $40.00 for 1 Mbps on the business plan.

The difference is 17.5%,

The current residential rate is about $11.25 for 1Mbps.

It a bit harder to guess what the cost would be for 100Mbps for Residents. I hoping they offer 100Mbps for 70 to 100 bucks a month at least

The difference is 21.21%

http://stcroixsource.com/content/news/local-news/2014/06/25/government-internet-costs-dropping-due-vingn

$33.00 for 1 Mbps, That come up to $33,000.00 for 1Gbps for the government agencies (all on the one network)

The rates our local providers charge now is about $40.00 for 1 Mbps on the business plan.

The difference is 17.5%,

The current residential rate is about $11.25 for 1Mbps.

I agree: something is definitely off. However, the esteemed members of the V.I. Legislature are out of their depth in discussing these matters, unfortunately.

I'm also disappointed by local officials' mistakenly interchangeable use of the words "megabyte" and "megabit". The distressing thing is that I've even heard VINGN and Innovative officials repeatedly make the same error. A simple explanation of the difference: http://opensignal.com/knowledgebase/the-difference-between-megabyte-and-megabit.php

It a bit harder to guess what the cost would be for 100Mbps for Residents. I hoping they offer 100Mbps for 70 to 100 bucks a month at least

I've always assumed the residential rate for a 100Mbps service tier locally would be in the $200 range. We're probably gonna be 3-5 years behind stateside price levels.

Top download speed is a simplistic way to assess the quality of an ISP.

- Is that speed consistent throughout the day? Example: Netflix works great mid-morning, not so well in the evening.
- What is the latency (i.e. delay) for the packets to reach their destination? Example: distortion on Skype and other time-sensitive apps
- How often does the link "cut-out" and for how long? Example: dropped VoIP calls or screen sharing

Unfortunately, ISPs are not forthcoming with such information. It would keep everyone honest, customers whining that for 10 minutes once a week their video goes Mad Max and ISPs that drop 5% of their packets or go dark for several minutes a day.