PAGE CONTENTS
Objectives
The idea of CampNet was to serve the user group of the caravan and especially the motor caravan users with a new triple play service via satellite. The upcoming Newtec Sat3Play technology turned out to be the ideal vehicle for such service.
For IPcopter the core motivation for the project and the subsequent service have been:
- Unserved market requirement.
- End user base familiar with satellite communication and open to spend siginificant amounts for satcom technology, e.g. automatic pointing systems.
- Growing market as shown by demographic development.
- Excellent competitive position of satellite communication at nomadic services: The less infrastructure the more attractive are locations for campers.
- Very limited competition by fixed terrestrial networks
More than 2 years after project start the service and the corresponding technology are already introduced in the market, which could not have happened without this project. Several hundred motor homes are already equipped with a CampNet like Triple Play.
Challenges
- Low cost autopointing terminal
- Competitive transmission rates
- Tariff schemes tailored to Campers needs
- Simple operation
- Service to end users
Plan
The project is subdivided into two phases according to the following project plan:
| BDR Baseline Design Review | 14th December 2005 |
| Final Review Phase1 | 29th-30th June 2006 |
| PQR Pilot Qualification Review | June 2007 |
| SDA System Deployment Acceptance | November 2007, 2nd step December 2007 |
| Pilot | December 2007 to May 2008 |
| FR Final Review | May 19th 2008 |
Current Status
The project has successfully been finalized on May, 19th . The pilot service with more than 30 commercial users lasted about 6 months. Joanneum Research did an extensive user evaluation. For that an online survey has been developed and executed within the project. The result of the survey is summarized in the following:
Although it is not possible to generalize the results of the survey it can be said that the group of test persons was quite satisfied with the Alden@Mondo system. The section about the general impression confirms this completely with minor exceptions.
The failures reported during the usage can mostly be considered as within the tolerance when using a sophisticated electronic device. But even in failure cases the overall quality has been approved by the pilot users. The user manual is generally also approved by the pilot users though there are single suggestions from the users that should be considered in future versions of the manual.
Since end of 2007 the product is marketed commercially. Several hundred terminals are already in the field. Sales and marketing of the terminals is performed by Alden, www.alden.fr. Meanwhile the system is in the catalogue of most of the camping equipment wholesalers, e.g. Movera.
The communication services only can be booked on the portal http://alden.ipcopter.com. On www.ipcopter.de a video of the automatic pointing process can be seen.
Comment of a customer: You have an excellent product.