Eutelsat Tooway to ensure universal broadband access for Swisscom

Eutelsat Communications announced a major contract for its new Tooway satellite broadband Ka-band service with Swisscom, Switzerland‘s leading telecoms company.

According to the agreement, Eutelsat’s Tooway service is the satellite component of a far-reaching universal broadband programme for all Swiss homes.

Swisscom won a tender from the Swiss Ministry for Telecommunications to make broadband connectivity available as from January 2008 to all residential customers irrespective of their location.

Eutelsat’s satellite-based consumer broadband service was chosen by Swisscom following an exhaustive assessment of multiple wireless broadband access solutions able to address homes beyond range of terrestrial broadband networks.

Launched in Europe in late 2007, Tooway unites the skills of Eutelsat and ViaSat, a world leader in innovative satellite broadband services. Using Ka-band capacity on Eutelsat’s HOT BIRD 6 satellite for both forward and return links, Tooway is based on the SurfBeam DOCSIS broadband satellite system developed by ViaSat and already widely deployed in North America. ViaSat’s SurfBeam DOCSIS terminals are already used by over 325,000 subscriber homes in North America to deliver ADSL-like services, with a peak of almost 90,000 units shipped over the last three months.

From its position in orbit at 13 degrees East HOT BIRD 6 provides Swisscom with full coverage of Swiss territory. The service will be supplied to households via Bluewin, Swisscom’s Internet Service Provider.

For the user, the compact Tooway consumer satellite terminal comprises an Outdoor Unit (ODU) with a 67cm dish and an Indoor Unit (IDU) or modem that interfaces to a PC or home network via a standard Ethernet connection.

Commenting on the contract with Swisscom, Eutelsat Communications Chairman and CEO Giuliano Berretta said: “We are delighted with this contract as it is a first step towards the provision of affordable satellite consumer broadband services throughout Europe and the Mediterranean Basin in the Ka-band. This will be followed in 2010 with the launch of KA-SAT, our first fully dedicated multi-spot Ka-band satellite that, together with ViaSat’s SurfBeam DOCSIS ground system, will have the capacity to serve over 1 mln subscribers with high-speed and improved performance.”