Spacenet, a provider of network connectivity services via satellites orbiting Earth, has launched a new services program designed to give its channel partners an additional revenue stream and its end users better support during critical need.

Spacenet, whose ConnexStar Reseller channel program is aimed at the small- to med-sized enterprise market, developed the Enhanced Support Program after noticing that certain industries were in need of higher touch support services, said Steve D’Argenio, vice president of small-to-medium enterprise sales at Spacenet.

“Some of our higher-end resellers were starting to have a demand, especially in certain industries, in which our standard support services didn’t meet their critical needs,” he said. “The typical response time for standard support is three days, but in certain industries such as oil and gas, for example, there are critical services needs that require immediate support.”

An oil platform in the ocean is one example, he said. “If you’ve got a fire on the rig, you need support immediately, not three days from now.”

The Enhanced Support Program, available now, offers two levels of service levels. Both offer dedicated customer engineering support from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time, dedicated customer network engineering path escalation during non-business hours, access to network utilization reports and a remote annual network health check.

The Silver level includes customer network changes within eight hours, a 10-day remote dispatch service and a 24-month warranty on all hardware.

The Gold level offers customer network changes within two hours, next-business-day provisioning of voice and fax lines, same-day maintenance dispatch service and a 36-month warranty on all hardware.

Channel partners are able to resell the enhanced services as an add-on service to their ConnectStar customers, D’Argenio said.

“The key to this program is this really shows the evolution of how far satellite service has come,” he said. “It can do anything terrestrial networking services can do. It can be the primary connection for any and all applications.

“A few years ago, we wouldn’t even be having a conversation about different service levels. Today, however, it’s a whole new story,” he said.