CONCEPTS: SERVICES: SATELLITES

CONCEPTS: SERVICES: SATELLITES
ABSTRACT:

A spike in traffic for BBSes in the early 1990s (from Usenet and the
fidonet's Filebone) threatened to make the process of being a
networked BBS a prohibitively expensive one. At that point, a
solution presented itself: satellite feeds. For a short, exciting
time, services and messages could be delivered to your BBS via a
dish outside.

Additional Notes:

[cmvsat.jpg]

Bob Chapman of [1]Award Winning Web Site Designs mailed in the
letter that initiated this entry. From his letter: "BBS via
satellite. This was a breakthrough in eliminating the horrendous
long distance phone bills to get the Fidonet backbone messages and
files themselves (Filebone). It was a critical step that allowed
BBSing to hang on longer when internet connections were still rather
scarce."

Bob's page on this event and his part of it is located [2]here.

Planet Connect (Joe Overholt) and PageSAT (Norman Gillaspie)

The two companies that seem to have dominated the "Send Usenet and
fidonet feeds via satellite dishes to BBSes" market are Planet
Connect and PageSAT.

Pagesat's main man appears to have been Norman Gillaspie. He started
offering Newsfeeds via PageSAT in 1992. While putting the project
together, he put a posting in alt.dcom.telecom that gives a lot of
information about himself and his plans:

"I was involved in the television broadcast business from 1970 to
1980. In 1980 I was one of the pioneers of the home satellite
industry, and founded GCI (Gillaspie Communi- cations Inc.). We
produced over 15,000 satellite receivers and microwave down
converters.

"In 1984 I founded a company called ISS Engineering, Inc. ISS has
produced and marketed products to cable TV, TV broad- casters, radio
stations and satelite common carriers. ISS is also a satellite
common carrier and currently possesses apx. 10% of the resources on
GE's K-2 transponder 2. ISS designed satellite receivers and
components for companies wishing to bypass the telephone company
leased lines in point-to-multipoint applications. We have
significant capacity on K-2 and we have one of the highest energy
density signals from K-2. ISS is currently transmitting data to over
500 sites reliably throughout the U.S.

"I believe ISS has one of the best technical solutions for most
applications involving satellite data broadcast. ISS has been
basically an RF house, but as a common carrier I realize the
possibilities for distributing E-Mail or Usenet news, etc. I believe
ISS has the technology and satellite resources to make this a viable
service today......

"As an active reader of Usenet news for apx. 18 months, I have found
Usenet is a great way to stay current and to get more of a real time
feeling of various trends in society. Most of my activities
involving the net have been one-way, read-only, much like reading
newspapers or magazines. In the future with electronic publishing I
see the transmission of electronic newsletters, talking cartoons,
requests for bids, patent abstracts, legal rulings, and many other
forms of up-to-date information being distribued in a more immediate
form via satellite broadcast.

"The proliferation of computers and communication networks will
allow electronic publishing to have an increasing acceptance. This
should also open up a delivery and distribution method for artists,
writers, government and special interest groups,etc. Satellite
delivered information is the most direct route to the ultimate
user."

There is some roughness between PageSat's marketing person, Len
Rose, and some potential customers, but this may just be a matter of
squeaky wheels; it certainly seems the case the the PageSat costs
were higher than Planet Connect's. It should definitely be noted
that both PageSat and Planet Connect had some talented men behind
them; it wasn't a case of one doing a proper job and the other being
fly-by-night.

PageSat was ultimately bought out by a company called NCIT. From a
December 1995 Usenet Posting, Pagesat/NCIT started offering a
115.2Kbps connection via satellite:

"The Pagesat Netnews satellite broadcast service has been upgraded
to 115.2Kbps. Cost for this new serive is only $795.00 for the
satellite data terminal,antenna and outdoor electronics. The service
charge is $40.00 per month billed yearly and we tke credit cards
which will allow your site to get a complete newsfeed for a low
monthly rate.

"The PageSat HS 2000 satellite data terminal is the smart way for
Internet service providers, BBS operators and organizations to
receive virtually a complete Netnews newsfeed encluding binaries and
foriegn groups. Smart because it can take up to 25-30 percent of a
56K circuit just to receive a full newsfeed. Multiple NNTP newsfeeds
can take up even morebandwidth. The PageSat service currently
receives over 40 NNTP feeds, some of which are major backbone feeds
such as DEC-WRL and CERFnet.

"PageSat will be adding more incoming feeds over the next few
months. This saves your site from having to manage all these feeds
while providing a fast up-to-date realtime feed that will out
perform your competitor or get you that item someone posted for sale
for sale faster than virtually any other means. Newsgroups are added
constantly as more become available, which eases administration time
and costs. Imagine having news maintenance done automatically rather
than tracking down new groups and manually requesting them from your
provider!

Planet Connect's President was named Joe Overholt, and he made a
sizeable effort to post in Fidonet Echoes and Usenet boards to
answer various flareups and accusations that bounced back and forth
in Planet Connect's history. Planet Connect opened a service called
"Planet Connect Europe" in about April of 1996 (a Usenet posting by
Overholt mentions the service being up for six months, in December
of 1996).

The Fidonet Connection

Besides the natural "feeds" available of Usenet/NNTP material,
another constant stream of text came from Fidonet Echoes and
FILEBONE, which the satellite companies made sure to support. Since
one of Fidonet's biggest issues was pushing the mass of mail,
messages and files coming through its network (a network that
consisted of phone-based modems), satellite was as groundbreaking
for Fidonet traffic as it had been for Internet traffic.

Bob Chapman stresses the name of Sal Lizard (Fidonet 1:372/0) as
that of being a pioneer in the wedding of Fidonet and Satellite, and
being the first successful test case of the Planet Connect system.
Sal Lizard's BBS (The Mailbox, located in Charleston, South
Carolina) therefore went from being Node #39 to the Mail Hub for
Charleston Net (372). According to the Fidonet Nodelists, this
happened between January and October of 1993. Bob says "Joe Overholt
specifically recognized Sal at the ONE BBSCON Awards Banquet in
Atlanta in 1994. Hey, someone had to be PC's Guinea Pig! It is hard
to imagine the massive flood of attention that brought to Charleston
Net from other local Fidonet groups wanting to know HOW we did it.
Sal was extremely helpful to anyone/everyone interested.... I did my
thing for my own system and my users, but Sal did the same for our
whole local network and actually everyone in Fidonet!"

PageSat Goes Dark (December, 1996)

In December of 1996, PageSat/NCIT's feed went down and callers to
PageSat/NCIT's number were told that the company had gone out of
business. The recording supposedly mentioned that they had 400+
customers at the time of closure.

Norman Gillaspie of PageSat posted this message on a PageSat mailing
list:

"The investors and shareholders today decided to liquidate the NCIT.
This was a complete shock to me as I thought we had an agreement in
place to purchase the company over a period of time out of the
receipts of the company.

"I did not own any part of and was not an officer of the company but
had certain buy out rights that I could exercise.

"In any event after the transition to GE-1 the required power to
operate the service doubled and other various business reasons on
the investors side precipitated them into shutting down the company.
The operation of the teleport and space segment and salaries were
part of the problem. In addition new software and encryption would
need to be implemented in January to assure that payments would be
made towards the operation. I could not convince them to continue
on.

"I have worked for the past few months without any payments and have
not had a vacation for 3 years. The company owes me a fair amount in
back salary, vacation pay etc.

"As you might not no or be aware of. I started the USENET news
broadcast almost 4 years ago when the news feed was only 30 to 50
megs a day. It is now well over 700 megs just for the domestic
groups and not the foreign groups.

"There are well over 350 sites that were receiving their news feeds
via the satellite system."

This closure caused Joe Overholt to make an offer of a special deal
to the now ex-ed PageSat/NCIT members. The posting he sent out on
Usenet (on alt.usenet.satellite and other groups) is very
informative for his version of history and the state of Planet
Connect in December of 1996:

"Planet Connect presently operates three satellite data services
that specialize in BBS, Usenet, and commercial data services. The
19.2 baud service as been operating since 1993 and has approximately
500 subscribers in North America. This service provides Fidonet,
weather, UPI news, TV Listings, Sports, Stocks and a limited amount
of Usenet data to subscribers. This feed as a capacity of about 150
megs per day of compressed data.

"We also supply two identical 128K data services, one to North
America and one to Europe. These feeds include the same data as the
19,200 service but concentrate mainly on Usenet. About 90 per cent
of the traffic is Usenet. The Usenet feed is a near real-time feed
with a T-1 news server feeding the uplink constantly with the latest
postings. The delay between posting and sending over the satellite
is normally a few hours. At times when the Usenet feed becomes very
busy the delay may be longer since the satellite feed is limited to
128K at this time. We receive our news from UUNET, BBNPLANET and we
are presently testing others. We send all the conferences we can
find which is presently over 22,000. We do not edit binaries or make
any attempt to edit the feed unless the amount of USENET traffic is
to too large to pass through the 128K feed.

"Our satellite receiver is a very advanced commercial quality
receiver which features built in error correction capability,
automatic LNB tracking, and advanced addressibility. Unfortunely
these extra features add to the cost of the receiver which sells for
$888.00 with the computer interface card.

"Most of the dishes and LNBs used with the Pagesat system will also
work with the Planet Connect System. We recommend a 3 foot (90 CM.)
or larger dish. You should be able to connect the Planet Connect
data receive to the same cable as your Pagesat system used and
continue to operate. The satellite for our 128K system is Galaxy 4
which is located at 99 degrees in the satellite arc. This is about
mid way between the old and new Pagesat satellite locations. The
Hughes satellite provides a strong signal to all 48 states and
southern Canada. For better quality reception we recommend a 1 meter
or 1.2 meter dish although many of our subscribers use the 3 foot
dish.

"Presently our software is DOS based but Linux and Unix software is
about ready for beta testing. To use the Dos software, subscribers
connect a Dos based 386 or 486 to their network and copy the
satellite files into the News machine for processing. The files are
compressed with a PKZIP compatible format and the uncompressed files
are in the raw UUCP format.

"Planet Systems, Inc. is the parent company of Planet Connect and
has been incorporated since 1993. Prior to this company I started a
TV Shopping channel called Shop At Home in the same building and
took the company public. I have been operating from the same
location in Newport, Tennnessee since 1985. Shop At Home is now on
the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol of SATH. I remain on the
Board of Directors and still own a sizable amount of stock. The
company is in line to do about 100 million in sales during their
next business year. Planet Systems, Inc. is not associated with Shop
At Home, Inc. Planet Systems, Inc. is operating with no bank on
other outside debt. Payables are normal and sales have grown ever
year since the company started. We have 12 employees and also
operate an ISP in 13 local counties. I own all of the stock in
Planet Systems, Inc. at this time.

"Although Planet Connect gained a good reputation for furnishing
Fidonet to BBS operators, we have constantly upgraded our Usenet
feed to include a near real-time feed and all groups. When we first
started sending Usenet a couple of years ago we had delays of 1 to 3
days and other terrible problems. That is all behind us and we have
a very good feed at this this time. With the addition of our new
Linux/Unix software, we believe our Usenet feed will match or exceed
the quality of any land line feed without using up your landline
bandwidth.....

"We presently have about 20 receivers in stock with more being
shipped to us in about 2 weeks. They sell for $888.00. We offer a
money back refund in 60 days if you are somehow not happy with the
service. The Usenet service can be purchased for $50 per month or
$400 per year...."

The mention by Overholt of his founding of "Shop at Home" is
interesting on a trivia angle because of the resourcefulness of its
approach. Here's how a 1997 Associated Press article described
Overholt's beginnings with Shop at Home:

"Though still dwarfed by QVC and the Home Shopping Network, Shop at
Home has grown steadily, from $21.7 million in revenue in 1994 to
$40.7 in 1996 and $100.5 million this year.....It's a far cry from
the company's early days in 1986. Back then, founder Joseph Overholt
taped shows at the Newport, Tenn., police station -- the only place
in town with a video camera -- broadcast them to satellite dish
owners, then took calls on his home phone. At first he only sold
satellite equipment, but expanded to include real estate, novelty
toilet seats -- even his neighbors' used cars.

"In 1993, the company -- by then under its second owner -- moved to
Knoxville and tried to expand. Instead, Shop at Home nearly went
bankrupt, racking up a $1.8 million loss in fiscal 1994. That's when
Lillie, vice president and general manager of Fox's Atlanta
affiliate, took over. Overholt, who now owns and runs a software
development company, remains on the board of directors.

It's interesting to note how Overholt tapped very quickly onto the
power of Satellite connectivity and has used that medium to approach
various methods: commerce, Usenet, Fidonet, Internet. (Overholt
remained on the board of directors of Shop at Home into the 21st
century, until the company was bought out by Scripps).

Planet Connect was inducted into the Shareware Hall of Fame in 1997.

[3]pagesatdown.txt (2.5K) Posting to [email protected] Mailing List
by Norm Gillaspie of PageSAT/NCIT's Closure (December 4, 1996)
[4]pconnect-sysopn.jpg (445K) Ad from June, 1994 Sysop News and
Cyberworld Report: Ad for Planet Connect (Full Size)
[5]planetcinfo.txt (5.9K) Usenet Posting: Planet Connect Information,
by Joe Overholt
[6]pconnect-testimony-sm.jpg (202K) Planet Connect Advertisement:
Testimonials, BBS Magazine (January, 1995) (Reduced Size)
[7]pconnect-sysopn-tn.jpg (148K) Ad from June, 1994 Sysop News and
Cyberworld Report: Ad for Planet Connect (Reduced Size)
[8]pconnect-testimony.jpg (497K) Planet Connect Advertisement:
Testimonials, BBS Magazine (January, 1995) (Full-Size)
[9]cmvsat.jpg (39K) 1.2 Meter (4 Foot) Channel Master Dish for
Satellite Reception, from Planet Connect's Website
[10]gillaspi.txt (10K) Usenet Posting: Information about the PC-Sat
System Norman Gillaspie is working on, including personal history, tech
details and pricing information. (March 28, 1992)
[11]2004.05.planetc.tar (570K) Capture (via WGET) of the PLANETC.COM
Satellite Website, now Defunct (May, 2004)
[12]psvspc.txt (4.8K) Usenet Posting by Damien Thorn: Comparison of
PageSat vs. Planet Connect (November 29, 1995)
[13]pc1996.txt (5.9K) Usenet Posting: Overview of Planet Connect
services, by Joe Overholt, President of Planet Connect (December 5,
1996)
[14]heller-satellites.mp3 (1.8M) Excerpt from BBS Documentary
Interview: Philip Heller discusses Satellite Systems, as well as being
a customer of one and using it on his BBS (96kbps MP3 02:35)
[15]pagesatsh.txt (6.9K) Usenet Posting: Announcement of NCIT's Pagesat
Netnews High Speed 2000 Service (December 6, 1995)
[16]1stonsat.htm (5.4K) HTML Page discussing the offering of Earth Art
BBS's satellite feed. Announced as the first BBS offering data via
satellite dish (December 1, 1991) From
[17]www.awardwinningwebsitedesigns.com.
[18]bbsequip.htm (6.2K) HTML Listing of Equipment Used for the Earth
Art BBS, from [19]www.awardwinningwebsitedesigns.com.
[20]pagesat-down.txt (5.3K) Usenet Posting: PageSat-NCIT Satellite
Service is Down (December 5, 1996)

References

1. http://www.awardwinningwebsitedesigns.com/
2. http://www.awardwinningwebsitedesigns.com/1stonsat.htm
3. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/pagesatdown.txt
4. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/pconnect-sysopn.jpg
5. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/planetcinfo.txt
6. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/pconnect-testimony-sm.jpg
7. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/pconnect-sysopn-tn.jpg
8. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/pconnect-testimony.jpg
9. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/cmvsat.jpg
10. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/gillaspi.txt
11. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/2004.05.planetc.tar
12. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/psvspc.txt
13. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/pc1996.txt
14. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/heller-satellites.mp3
15. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/pagesatsh.txt
16. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/1stonsat.htm
17. http://www.awardwinningwebsitedesigns.com/
18. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/bbsequip.htm
19. http://www.awardwinningwebsitedesigns.com/
20. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONCEPTS/SERVICES/SATELLITES/pagesat-down.txt