Satellite leaders fight over who's the best

NEWS Broadband satellite global rivals Hughes Network Systems and Gilat are involved in a heated dispute over market share as Hughes prepares a UK launch early next year. It's rival Gilat - an Israeli-based company - is already offering services with BTopenworld. Sampath Ramaswami, director of strategic marketing, has not been deterred by Gilat's head-start: "We have always had a 60 to 80 per cent lead on global market share over Gilat and those numbers also apply in Europe." Gilat's VP of sales and marketing for Europe, Christian Stetter, slammed Ramaswami's comments: "This is complete nonsense. Talking about market shares of 60 to 80 per cent is ridiculous. In terms of equipment and sales contracts in Europe we are outnumbering them at two to one, "This year we have set up 6,000 sites in Europe already and sold 4,000 VSATs. We will be servicing around 6,000 of those sites ourselves. That doesn't include the 2,000 VSATs already delivered to BTopenworld." Stetter added: "We are far ahead of Hughes in the US as well. Our two way satellite, Starband, has 45,000 installations in place compared to Hughes' Direcway with around 2,000."