ViaSat UK (formerly Stonewood), which offers Satellite and related digital communication products, has officially expanded its existing relationship with EutelSat in order to deploy affordable broadband services via their new KA-SAT (Tooway10mb) spacecraft.

The 6.1 tonne KA-SAT satellite, which was launched at the end of 2010 (here) and officially began offering commercial services May 2011, is capable of offering broadband internet speeds of up to 10Mbps download (4Mbps upload) to most of Europe. Several UK ISPs, such as Tooway Direct, Bentley Walker and Avonline, already offer services via the new platform.

According to V3, ViaSat aims to offer a similar range of services to the above ISPs via its SurfBeam products. Prices are expected to start at a fairly standard £25 per month for the entry-level 6Mbps download (1Mbps upload) package. The ISP will also offer a top-tier 20Mbps download (10Mbps upload) product, which some other providers do not. But some of ViaSat's claims seem a bit wide of the mark.


Cable operator Virgin Media UK might disagree, given its unrestricted, low-latency 100Mbps product for home users and 1Gbps+ services for business clients. Similarly EutelSat's cheaper KA-SAT packages can suffer from heavy throttling that makes the "far more flexible" claim seem highly questionable.

None of this is to say that Satellite isn't an excellent solution for isolated rural areas, which is despite its high latency and meagre usage allowances, but comparing that to cable could give the wrong impression about its capability.

On the other hand ViaSat could be referring to slower ADSL / ADSL2+ services via copper BT lines, which aren't traditionally called "cable" solutions (so as to avoid confusion with true cable DOCSIS services). However, this would still make the "far more flexible" claim seem questionable; KA-SAT can't quite match DSL's level of affordability, latency or usage allowance.