Germany, already the country with the most DSL connections in
Europe, is poised to take the lead in the rollout of satellite
broadband services.
This month, Deutsche Telekom and Hot Telecommunications
(Deutschland) - a fully owned company of Hughes Network Systems -
launched an array of satellite broadband services.
Deutsche Telekom's satellite service is aimed specifically at
private and small business users - about 10% of the population -
that cannot be reached through its land-based DSL service.
"We said from the start that we won't be able to extend DSL to all
parts of Germany for cost reasons, so this is a solution aimed to
fill the gaps," said Deutsche Telekom spokesman Walter Genz.
"The satellite service is not aimed at potential DSL customers
because they're clearly better off with a fixed-line service. It's
cheaper."
Deutsche Telekom is partnering with SES Global of Luxembourg, which
operates the Astra satellite. The service provides a 768Kbps (bits
per second) downlink via satellite and a 64Kbps or tunnelled
124Kbps over ISDN.
Users require an Astra dish and either a DVB (digital video
broadcasting) PC card or DVB USB (universal serial bus) set-top
box. They can choose between two tariffs: €19.90 (£12) a month for
500Mbytes, with each additional megabyte costing around three
pence; or €39.90 (££24.83) a month with no limit on volume.
They must also have an ISDN connection, which costs about €32
(£20), and an Internet account. Deutsche Telekom's Internet arm,
T-Online, offers access plans with a combined phone discount
starting at €5 (£3.11) a month and less than a penny a minute.
The company's DSL users, by comparison, pay about €14 (£8.71) a
month for the connection and about €5 (£3.11) for an unmetered
Internet service, in addition to the €32 (£20) a month ISDN
connection.
At the end of April, Deutsche Telekom had contracts for 2.4 million
DSL connections, of which 2.3 million were installed. The operator
is signing up approximately 700,000 new customers a month.
By contrast, Hughes Network Systems Europe is targeting remote
corporate workers and small and medium-sized businesses with its
two-way broadband service.
Hughes Network Systems was among the first in Europe to role out
VSAT (very small aperture terminal) services when the European
market for satellite services opened up more than 15 years ago.
Earlier in the year, Internet service provider Strato launched one
of Germany's first broadband satellite services. For $39.30
(£27.30) a month, customers can download 500Mbytes at speeds up to
1.6Mbps and upload at 64Kbps or 124K bps tunnelled.
Heavy data users can select a higher-speed package: €54.90 (£34) a
month for a 4Mbps downstream link and 64K or 124Kbps upstream,
including 1Gbyte.