Satellite operator Tariam UK has announced a substantial performance increase for its domestic Homenet (Eutelsat Tooway) service. Download performance has been improved from 2Mbps to reach up to 3.6Mbps, brining it in line with the national average (according to Ofcom) for terrestrial land-line based broadband services, and the priority traffic allowances for each of its service offerings have also been doubled.

This means that the entry level service now offers a full 2.4GB (GigaByte) allowance every month with speeds of over 3.5Mbps. This is a welcome improvement and Tariam claims it will make the service more attractive to homes and small businesses situated outside the ADSL footprint in so-called "not-spots". Though with a price tag of £39.99 inc. VAT per month, which doesn't include the hefty hardware costs, it's still not quite what we'd call "affordable".

However Tariam has also gone one step further and added Voice over IP (VoIP) support to its Homenet service, which is expected to see further improvements in the future and ultimately be able to deliver speeds of up to 10Mbps in 2010, when a new Satellite is launched. Frustratingly Tariam's website is refusing to load this morning.