EMS Technologies has received an order for more that 15,000 broadband, Ka-Band, two-way VSat terminals from a European-based company that will provide service via one of the SES-Astra satellites.

EMS said the contract, which will be filled by its Space & Technology Group in Montreal, is worth more than $52 million (E55.6m). It will begin shipping the terminals in November and will continue for at least two years, the company said.

The VSats will provide download speeds up to 40Mbit/s and upload speeds up to 2Mbit/s. They will support the DVB-RCS standard now being promoted by satellite operators, EMS Technologies said.

London-based Kokua Communi-cations will provide the broadband service to small-to-medium sized businesses, remote sites of large corporations and home office users. The company plans to begin commercial service in November.

It will use the two Ka-Band transponders on the Astra 1H. Its Ka-Band transponders each provide a bandwidth of 500MHz.