Question #1: Isn't it odd that you are taking a previously proprietary standard and bringing it out as an open standard?

Answer: No, actually most standards held by the Telecommunication Industry Association are developed proprietary and then are brought public. This is true of older standards such as DVB and newer standards such as DVB-S2 and IPoS. Additionally, the highly anticipated DVB-S2 standard has large portions that were developed by Hughes in the same manner as IPoS. The real difference in why a company takes a proprietary standard public has to do with the company's intent. In this case Hughes believes that standards are good for our company and the industry at large because they increase reliability, and ease application development through a predictable well understood development environment. These in turn increase adoption as customers can use the system for more applications and have better, more predictable performance.

Question #2: What is the relationship between SPACEWAY™ and IPoS?

Answer: IPoS is a "bent pipe" satellite standard (think of today's C- and Ku-band satellites). SPACEWAY is a full mesh architecture satellite and thus does not utilize the same technology. However, a similar standard for mesh satellites, such as SPACEWAY, has just completed review and is being posted with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).