eutelsat
Latest
Two of Europe's biggest internet satellite companies are merging to take on Starlink
OneWeb and Eutelsat plan to combine their fleets.
Facebook to beam free internet to Africa via satellite
Facebook has made it clear that satellites will play a big role in delivering its free internet initiative to people across the globe, but talk of a rollout has been pretty limited. That changed today after the company announced it's teamed up with French communications specialist Eutelsat to beam connectivity to more than 14 countries in the most densely populated parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
El Al teams up with ViaSat for speedy in-flight WiFi on flights to Europe
ViaSat's not yet a household name here in the US, but the company's super-fast WiFi is well on its way, due in no small part to successful launches on JetBlue and United. Now, the satellite provider is set to bring its Exede in-flight internet to El Al passengers, operating on several 737s between Tel Aviv and cities in Europe. Unlike the North American service, which connects to ViaSat-1, this European counterpart will hook up with Eutelsat's Ka-Sat, with ViaSat's terminals and antennas handling the connection on each plane. El Al plans to launch the Ka-band service within the next year.
First Ultra HD channel goes live in Europe
Eutelsat Communications launched the first dedicated demonstration Ultra HD channel in Europe on January 8th. Delivered via satellite with the resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 (4K) at 50 frames per second -- the European equivalent to 60p -- the stream is encoded in MPEG-4 with help from video compression solution provider, ATEME, and transmitted at 40 Mbps. This is over twice the bandwidth used by most 1080i broadcasts, but not necessarily an indication of future Ultra HD broadcasts utilization, as they're expected to use the more efficient HEVC codec -- depending on color space and other factors, Ultra HD broadcasts might use less throughput than 1080i does now. With only three very expensive Ultra HD TVs on the market, there aren't many who can take advantage of this. Hopefully if you are one of the lucky few, you're in a position to take advantage of this native content on your latest prized possession.
Eutelsat's Ka-Sat satellite goes into service, provides broadband to 13 million homes across Europe
Europe's already extensive broadband coverage may be expanding even further, now that Eutelsat's Ka-Sat satellite has officially gone into service. The new craft, which launched from Kazakhstan in late December, uses spotbeam technology to generate areas of connectivity that are about 250 kilometers wide, with each beam carrying a total capacity of 900Mbps. Unlike the Hylas 1, its reach will extend far across the continent, providing Tooway's high-bandwidth services to 13 million households in remote locations. Subscribers will have download speeds of up to 10Mbps and upload rates of 4Mbps, though they'll still have to put up with latency on the order of 250ms, making life even more difficult for Eastern European OnLive gamers. Of course, this access won't come for free, but Ka-Sat's 82-beam network structure significantly lowers its operating costs, allowing Eutelsat to offer prices that are on par with market rates. According to company CEO Michel de Rosen, customers should expect to pay around €30 for basic service, in addition to €250 they'd have to spend on a 77cm satellite dish. That's not necessarily a small amount of cash for low-income families to fork over, but at least they'll have an option that didn't exist before. Head past the break for a video about Tooway's Ka-Sat services, along with a full PR.
Eutelsat's Ka-Sat blasts off for adventure and good uplink speeds (video)
Oh, look at you Europe, with your white Christmas blizzards and your fancy satellites. All proud and bragging as your second internet-beaming vehicle in as many months rockets off into orbital oblivion. Following November's Hylas 1 is Ka-Sat, using the same spotbeam technology to rain down limited, focused areas of connectivity that are a couple-hundred kilometers across, allowing better management of overall satellite bandwidth. Hylas 1 used its beams to cover areas across the UK and Eastern Europe, while Ka-Sat will cover more areas of Europe and also hit parts of the Middle East. Maximum speeds offered to subscribers will be 10Mbps down, 4Mbps up, but with only 900Mbps on tap total per beam we're thinking that could get a little slower on Saturday nights. Obligatory countdown and blastoff video below.
Eutelsat Europe's HD capacity leader?
HDTV is taking off in Europe, enough for quibbling over who can and is delivering the most channels to start. Eutelsat announced it's currently broadcasting 63 HD channels, making SES Astra's 55 channels seem so small and insignificant that they should probably just change schools, since everyone knows what a loser they are now. Of course, Broadband TV News mentions that number is more like 137 if you add in SES's other satellite programs, so who knows, they may stick around and do battle. Beyond the increased revenues for each satellite operator, Euro HD heads, is all this high definition trickling down to your local programming guide yet?
