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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 1 -12/2012
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www.TELE-satellite.com
Even though “USA” appears promi-
nently in the company’s name, the on-
line shop USATel really doesn’t have
much in common with that large coun-
try in North America. Instead they
are a large online shop in Brazil. The
satellite fan can find anything and ev-
erything needed here and it gives us a
good reason to take a closer look at this
company.
South of Sao Paulo in the suburb of
Villa Nair somewhere on one of the
many hills in this region you’ll find US-
ATel’s headquarters and warehouse.
There’s no company sign but there are
a number of dishes on the roof and
in the courtyard that suggest there’s
something interesting for digital TV en-
thusiasts going on inside.
The company is made up of four
employees; Manager Jose Manuel
Pereira tells us more: “My financial
partner and I founded the company
back in 2000.” Before that Jose Manuel
Pereira, whose family originally came
from Portugal, lived for many years in
Paraguay in Cuidad del Este and ran
a clothing company. When he moved
to Sao Paulo, he got together with
businessman Cshaooky Annahas. He’s
responsible for the finances and Jose
Manuel Pereira takes care of the busi-
ness end of things. The business idea
was digital TV which was just getting
started back then.
“
My business partner and owner of
the company Cshaooky Annahas comes
from Syria. Twice a year he travels to
China and takes care of buying the
products.” USATel is an importer; they
import the receivers, LNBs and dishes.
“
We get many of the satellite dishes
from China”, Jose Manuel Pereira tells
us. Especially popular are the 1.5-me-
ter antennas for reception of C2 at 70W
and B4 at 74W. “Demand for 60cm dish-
es for reception of HISPASAT at 30W
and INTELSAT 11 at 45W is strongly
increasing”, he adds. Sky uses the IN-
TELSAT 11 satellite for PayTV services.
While USATel sells about 5000 C-band
dishes and roughly 10,000 Ku-band an-
tennas a year, sales of the matching re-
ceivers are considerably less. “We offer
a DVB-S receiver under our own brand
name USATel; we sell about 1000 of
these a year.” But he sees a brand new
business in IPTV: “We are just getting
started offering IPTV receivers; this
should be a big market for us.”
USATel is an Internet online shop
that sells to end users. All orders are
shipped to customers; USATel does not
have walk-in stores. They also have
a business segment geared towards
professional customers. “We also sell
WLAN reception stations.”
The Internet is widely distributed
wirelessly in the 5.8 GHz band through-
out Brazil. Customers therefore don’t
have to wait for their house to be ca-
bled; instead they just install a small
antenna on their house. Even large
1.8-
meter diameter antennas that are
used for reception over longer distanc-
es are available from USATel. “They
permit reception at distances of even
70
km”, says Jose Manuel Pereira and
then continues, “We sell about 2000
WLAN reception stations via the Inter-
net every year.”
The small company USATel has decid-
ed to focus on just a few products but
they are products that won’t become
obsolete any time soon. This approach
keeps them ahead of the pack when it
comes to technological development in
their own country Brazil.
1.
An interesting business segment for
USATel is WLAN reception antennas
that they offer in various sizes. In the
background is a cabinet with receivers that
carry their own USATel brand name.
2.
Osmar Gomes is USATel’s Warehouse
Manager. He can be seen here preparing a
shipment for a customer. 1.8-meter dishes
are hanging on the wall and are used to
receive Internet signals in the 5.8 GHz
range.