New Satellite increases prospects of greater broadband services

A new satellite with a good potential to offer broadband Internet services to homes and businesses across Europe and the Mediterranean was successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan recently.

Eutelsat’s Ka-Sat is the third broadband Internet satellite to be launched recently. Ka SAT is based on SkyTerra-1 technology is meant to provide services across North America whereas Hylas-1 based technology satellite would target Europe. Ka-Sat will cover the entire continent with about 80 spot beams spanning different areas. Spot beams allow to use available frequencies to be effectively reused in several regions without hindrance, providing increased capacity.

Each spot beam with an overall capacity of 900Mbps, would shared between users, and the entire satellite capacity would be 70Gbps.Eutelsat also offers a satellite broadband service known as TooWay launched in 2009 and provides a two-way satellite broadband connection. Download speed can go up to 3.6Mbps in the U.K. Ka-Sat would permit TooWay to boost speeds up to 10Mbps from the satellite and around 4Mbps up to the satellite.The satellite can also provide other services related to local digital TV and digital cinema distribution.