Eutelsat is making a play for Europe’s rural broadband users with the opening of its KA-SAT high throughput satellite for commercial operations.
The bird offers peak data rates of 10Mbps in the downlink and 4Mbps up, and receives signals via a 77cm dish that connects to PCs and Macs via an Ethernet cable. In addition to broadband access, the satellite can also handle VoIP and television reception, though the latter requires pairing with neighboring Ku-band birds.
Higher data rates of 40Mbps down and 10Mbps up are available for services including private networks, business broadband access, back up services and remote monitoring. Eutelsat plans to grow the capacity in both directions by 10Mbps in the near future.
The bird sports a payload of 82 narrow spot beams connected to ten ground stations, which Eutelsat claims allows frequencies to be re-used 20 times and takes total throughput to 70Gbps.
Michel de Rosen, the firm’s CEO, said the bird “turns a new page in affordable and immediately available IP solutions, and places Europe at the forefront of high-capacity satellite technologies.”