Posted: 16th May, 2006 By: MarkJ
Avanti Screenmedia PLC has begun development of Hylas, a British initiative/satellite due for launch in 2008. The spacecraft is aimed at bridging the broadband (+HDTV) digital divide between urban and rural areas in Europe:
The £75m (110m euros) satellite, to be built by EADS-Astrium, will receive a third of its funding through the European Space Agency (Esa).
Private financing will pay for the rest of the project, which Avanti says will also be capable of delivering hundreds of high-definition TV channels.
Its model is for internet services to be delivered to a central terminal in a village and then fed out to a cluster of users in a local area via a wi-fi network. "We have a problem in Europe in that broadband is still not a universal service," said Giuseppe Viriglio, director of EU and Industry Programmes at Esa. "To do this we need to provide an infrastructure - even to the remotest areas - where fibres do not go; and satellite can do that. Satellite does not substitute ground infrastructure but it does have a role."Hopefully governments wont blissfully accept the new technology as a reason not to extend fixed broadband services into rural areas.
It will be interesting to see whether the new technology can solve any of Satellite broadbands inherent problems (unstable speeds, high costs, limited data traffic etc.). More @
BBC News Online.