Multimedia services and data broadcasting via satellite

EUTELSAT as well as other service providers (in Europe and North America) in collaboration with industrial partners and research institutions, have been developing since 1995 digital platforms for providing multimedia services via satellite services as well as data broadcasting. In the European case, these digital platforms are based on the same technology as the one used for the emerging digital television and radio, namely: the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) and MPEG-2 technology and a specific DVB standard will be finalised by the end of this summer. These platforms will greatly improve the speed of multimedia services to the end users (e.g. up to 2 Mbit/sec per session on an Internet connection) and will provide the possibility of downloading very large files in a very short time (e.g. downloading speeds of up to 40 Mbit/sec) to a very large number of customers. By using the same technology as the one used for digital television and radio, large economies of scale are foreseen, thus making these digital platforms very affordable on both the uplink side and the receiver side (e.g., less than $300 for the receiver kit).