Tooway
Tooway satellite broadband Internet service available across Europe. The first version of the service was launched in 2007 via two Eutelsat geostationary satellites, Hot Bird 6 and Eurobird 3, respectively at the 13° and 33° East orbital positions. At the end of 2010, Eutelsat launched KA-SAT, the first European High Throughput Satellite to operate in Ka band. KA-SAT was positioned at 9° East, and delivers Internet access and broadcast services toward Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. Commercial service started on KA-SAT at the end of May 2011. Tooway services over KA-SAT satellite provide up to 50 Mbit/s downstream and up to 6 Mbit/s upstream. Services Tooway makes use of the Internet Protocol over satellite to provide consumers across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin with Internet access. Unlike services relying on terrestrial infrastructures (such as cable or ADSL), satellites provide service in wide coverage areas as broad as a continent. Terrestrial wireless broadband technologies focus on dense urban centers and leave consumers outside these areas with narrowband connections or no connection at all. Unserved and unsatisfied users were estimated to reach 30 million households in Western and Eastern Europe by 2010. Tooway services operate over and via Eutelsat's geostationary satellites. This enabled bit rates of 3.6 Mbit/s downstream and 384 kbit/s upstream in 2009. Service differentiation is done on volume consumption per month through a Fair Access Policy. When consumption is above volume thresholds, the service remains available but at lower speeds. Tooway also provides a Voice over IP service for voice telephone calls over the Internet. In mid-2011, commercial use of KA-SAT with the SurfBeam 2 system from ViaSat allowed higher bit-rates and volumes at the same price over the European coverage area. Tooway service over KA-SAT satellite provides up to 50 Mbit/s downstream and up to 6 Mbit/s upstream Since KA-SAT is located at 9°E, near Eutelsat's HOT BIRD TV neighborhood (13° East), Internet Protocol services can be combined with Digital Video Broadcasting television service using a single satellite dish with two low noise block-downconverters. This means subscribers can access satellite TV channels without additional dishes. Tooway also markets IPTV services with Video on Demand and Digital video recorder features. Technology ViaSat SurfBeam technology uses the Ka band, approximately twice as high in frequency as Ku band. This implies a smaller beam which contributes towards smaller end-user terminals. Smaller beams allow more efficient use of satellite power on the forward link and improved G/T (Gain-over-Temperature) on the return link. Smaller beams draw smaller cells on ground (beam footprint) which also permits more cells in a given service area, increasing frequency reuse. Ka band has less interference than Ku band, since fewer satellites operate in this frequency. Tooway and ViaSat SurfBeam make use of DVB-S2 Variable Coding and Modulation technologies. Adaptive Coding and Modulation gathers fading conditions from each terminal and adapts signal encoding and modulation to each individual terminal's receiving condition. This allows efficient transmission to each terminal, without degenerating the efficiency of the whole network. A return channel