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• Some IT departments continue, even after considering the technology, to select leased line services rather than VSAT despite the fact that there is little doubt that a VSAT solution could provide tangible benefits at lower cost.
  
  The problem is that leased lines are a "safe" solution - known, tried and trusted - whereas VSAT is "new" and therefore considered risky. In the "I can't risk my job" stakes, leased lines are attractive to a worried manager. However, if senior management were to be aware of the benefits offered by a VSAT service, perhaps this option would not be so attractive to the people responsible for new procurements because the fact that the safe option would be likely to cost the business several millions of dollars extra would be equally risky. To offer an example of a cost comparison, in the United States a large chain of over 1,000 locations recently selected a VSAT solution based on a comparison with Frame Relay services. Frame Relay was calculated at between $400 and $450 per site per month in comparison to the chosen VSAT equivalent which undercut this by more than 50 per cent. The VSAT solution cost less than $150 per site per month and did not require additional routers/FRADs or other external devices. Not only that, but Frame Relay is not universally available across even the United States, but VSAT services are - even in the remoter areas of Alaska.
  
  
• In the developing world by comparison, PTTs and dominant terrestrial operators often rubbish satellite solutions in general and VSAT in particular. Yet, on close examination, almost all of the major banks in the developing economies of Asia and Latin America now use VSAT service solutions because they are the only way by which they are able to support sophisticated IT platforms reliably and effectively. Whilst the PTTs and (sometimes) governments reject the technology, it is VSAT which holds together the very foundation of their economies.
  

Isn't this worth thinking about if you have a business with multiple locations in Europe, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, Russia/CIS, or Africa? If you do and you currently deal with a variety of carriers and interconnection agreements, if you have to cope with wildly divergent levels of service quality, if you have to call two or more contacts to get a problem sorted out, if you are fed up with the huge jump in cost as you cross a border, you should be considering a VSAT solution.

• From Heathrow Airport take the high speed train link to Paddington Station and change for connection to St Albans.
• From Gatwick Airport there is a direct train link to St Albans (1 hour journey time approximately, trains run every 15 minutes).
• From M25 travelling clockwise exit at junction 21A. Take A414 signposted St Albans, continue into the town and take the signs for BR station. The office is adjacent to the station at the bottom of Victoria Street.
• From M25 travelling anti-clockwise exit at junction 22. Take A1081 signposted St Albans, prior to reaching town centre take signs for BR station.
• For M1 travelling South exit junction 9.Take A5183 signposted St Albans to town centre and follow instructions as above.
• From M1 travelling North exit junction 6 and take A414 to St Albans town centre and follow signs for BR station
• From St Albans BR station exit right. Fountain court is across Victoria Street and approximately a 1 minute walk.