Eutelsat Touts New 22Mbps Business Broadband Satellite Packages

Eutelsat, a European focused Satellite operator, has announced that ISPs which help to distribute its services in the UK (e.g. Avonline and Bentley Walker) and other countries will soon be able to offer a new range of new ‘up to’ 22Mbps download (6Mbps uploads) capable business packages; one of which comes with a bigger usage allowance.

The new options, which will replace the current KA-SAT Access based business offerings, claim to be “faster, more flexible and packed with additional support features to benefit business customers“.

As such the new Tooway Business packages will come with monthly usage allowance options of 25GB, 40GB, 100GB or 200GB. We also note that the old 2Mbps Tooway Telemetry package, which includes a 2GB allowance and is designed for basic M2M communications, will continue to be available.

Jean-Francois Fenech, General Manager at Eutelsat Broadband, said:

“With tooway™ Business we are providing a range of improved broadband solutions in step with the needs of our business customers that are simple to understand, convenient to use and offer outstanding value for money – all backed by a business focused support team. If businesses feel that lack of access to high-speed broadband is holding back their business or that they need an alternative or additional provider, then tooway™ Business is the place to start your search.”

It’s interesting to note that these packages are very similar to what Eutelsat ISPs already sell (e.g. 35GB, 50GB, 85GB, 110GB, 140GB and 175GB), which might suggest a desire to simplify their range. But they also highlight the problem with business Satellite solutions because a lot of firms would find even the top 200GB to be far too little for their needs.

All of the new services offer a range of additional business benefits and service options, which we’ve summarised below.

Tooway Business Benefits and Options

· Business Hour Protection ensures business customers have preferential access to the satellite network during core operating hours of 7am to 7pm local time.

· A fixed Public IP Address.

· Night Time. An option designed to cater for applications such as scheduled back-ups or large file transfers that create significant amounts of data traffic but can be carried out overnight, during the quieter network period. Customers pay a small additional monthly fee and any data used between midnight and 6am does not contribute to the standard monthly data allowance.

· 20GB Volume Boosters that can be purchased as required when monthly data limits are reached.

· Custom Committed Information Rates (CIR) for solutions that require guaranteed bandwidth to operate due to technical, security or contractual requirements. Entry-level CIR options are designed for mission-critical signaling and telemetry, VOIP and digital radio broadcasting. Higher-level CIR options can help with the flexible and fast implementation of enterprise-grade applications for public safety, disaster recovery and terrestrial backhaul.

· Additional Fixed Public IP Addresses for when more than one address is required.

Crucially the key question of cost is not answered (we’ll have to wait for some ISPs to adopt the new packages first), which is a very important consideration when you think that the current top-end 175GB business package could set you back over £500 per month just on the rental.

Even the cheapest 35GB service tends to hover around the £80 mark and that’s before we even get into the installation fees. So hopefully the new packages are an improvement, but we suspect they’ll still be quite pricey.