Having recently given over some editorial space to a consideration of Astra’s broadband-via-satellite solution, Astra2Connect, it seems only fair to mention Eutelsat’s rival version, Tooway, whose launch I attended at IBC in 2007.
This week Eutelsat announced that it had launched the service in France through partners Numeo and Sat2Way at ‘no more than €35/month, equipment included.’
The price-point is significant, since it meets the government’s expectation in its updated France Numérique 2012 plan (NB, PDF) that any household in the country, wherever it is located, should be able to access broadband at speeds above 512KBit/s for €35/m or less.
The Tooway service claims to deliver downstream speeds to users’ PCs of 2MBit/s coupled with an upstream rate of 384KBit/s.
To access the service, consumers will require a dish and modem, which are included in the monthly subscription fee proposed by Numéo and Sat2Way.
Repeating a suggestion noted in the Astra2Connect post, Eutelsat is claiming that service-providers could use Tooway “to build triple-play offers combining Internet access, Voice over IP and IPTV channels” – the IPTV claim in particular being one that Connected TV is sceptical about.
Nevertheless, the price of the Eutelsat service compares advantageously to Astra2Connect’s – if that is, it really does offer 2MBit/s. To get that service-level, UK users of the Astra service would have to fork out £74.99 a month, the kit would cost £299, and installation a further £100. Moreover, the Astra service only supports an upstream rate of £128KBit/s.
Eutelsat’s announcement says that in Europe, Swisscom, Switzerland’s national telecommunications operator, the ISP Fastweb in Italy and Telecable and Distecable in Spain have already selected Tooway to extent broadband access.
Tooway currently uses Ka-band capacity on Eutelsat’s HOT BIRD 6 satellite, but in 2010 the operator will deploy a new satellite infrastructure to support the service’s widescale deployment throughout Europe.
Eutelsat says this will offer performance levels comparable to ADSL-2, with speeds to the user of 10 MBit/s downstream.
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