[Satellite Today 02-03-09] Eutelsat Communications and partners Numeo and Sat2Way launched a broadband access service in France, Eutelsat announced Feb. 2.
    The initiative is consistent with action one of the Digital France 201" plan announced by the French government in October, which aims to have guaranteed access to broadband in all homes in France at reasonable cost by Jan. 1.
    The satellite broadband solution proposed by Eutelsat and its partners is based on the Tooway service, an individual-access broadband solution for consumers and small enterprises which delivers downlink speeds to user PCs of 2 megabits per second and speeds from the user on the transmit side of 384 kilobits per second.
    Tooway is available using Ka-band capacity on Eutelsat’s Hot Bird 6 satellite. Eutelsat plans to deploy a new satellite infrastructure to support the service’s deployment throughout Europe in 2010.