French satellite operator Eutelsat estimates that its new multimedia satellite platform in Turin, Italy, will generate 10 million euros ($10.63 million) in revenue over the next two years. The platform, which began operations March 21, is equipped to provide value-added broadband services to businesses, public administrations, service and content providers.

Arduino Patacchini, Eutelsat’s multimedia director and managing director of its Skylogic Italia subsidiary, told Interspace: “It should grow quickly to reach a turnover close to 10 million euros in the next two years. But, it could be more than this. This is the turnover generated just on the basis of a couple of transponders. The platform is equipped to serve up to eight transponders. So, if the market fully develops to utilise the capacity of the platform, turnover could be up to four times higher. In terms of business plans for the company, we have an objective during 2003 to reach 2,000 terminals deployed for two-way services.”

The new teleport facility is connected to the Internet backbone through one of Italy’s largest nodes. The platform is fully configured to provide users with one-way and two-way services, including live streaming of business TV and corporate networks, multicasting of video and IP data. The platform is also configured for Eutelsat’s D-Star two-way broadband service.

The aim of the platform is to help Eutelsat to generate revenues from broadband solutions, as well as cement its strong position in the Italian market. Patacchini believes there is a strong market opportunity for Eutelsat here, particularly given the country dynamics in Italy. “The broadband market is served to a large extent by fiber or ADSL. But even with these in place, there is at least 20 per cent of the population that won’t be served by terrestrial broadband applications. There are large areas of the population that will not be served by terrestrial broadband, because the investment will simply be too high to serve them.”

Patacchini sees co-operation among different telecom operators as a key to success. “What we intend to do is work together with the fiber operators to offer a seamless service to users, to connect by fiber, satellite and possibly complement satellite with Wi-Fi or other technologies to serve local areas.”

Focus on Piedmont

Much of Eutelsat’s focus will be on the high-tech Italian region of Piedmont, which has 400,000 small to medium sized businesses. Patacchini told Interspace that the operator has now reached an agreement with the Public Administration of Piedmont, to use the satellite broadband system to serve a number of towns not fully covered by fiber. This follows on from a similar deal on the Island of Stromboli, where D-Star services such as voice, data and Internet access are provided to Italy’s Civil Protection Agency.

Turin, as well as being a key centre for Italian businesses, is also hosting the 2006 Winter Olympics, providing opportunities for Eutelsat in terms of broadcasting and broadband infrastructure in the region. “There is a big role for satellites, because it is virtually impossible to provide coverage by terrestrial means everywhere in the mountains, especially for an event that only lasts two weeks. We are working with the Turin Olympic Committee. We have been working on special applications, such as the area of internal closed television networks, signal distribution and B-to-B applications,” Patacchini said.

While the deployment of the satellite platform is an indication of Eutelsat’s desire to gain a significant slice of the Italian broadband market, it can also be seen as a way of boosting its profile and position in one of its core markets. Eutelsat has a platform in Rambouillet, France, which forms a similar function to the one in Turin. Patacchini said: “We intend to re-inforce our position in Italy where we are already market leader for satellite broadcasting but where there is a lot of competition for new multimedia and broadband services. Our position in television is well established. But for broadband, the market is relatively new. So, the challenge is to position Eutelsat as the main provider in terms of broadband and be able to satisfy the demand in such a way that we can reach equivalent levels of market share as for television.”

But, despite the opening of the new platform, do not expect Eutelsat to replicate this platform approach in other European territories just yet. Patacchini said: “The reason why we have a platform in Italy, is that, historically it is one of our first markets and because we saw a good opportunity to collaborate with Euphon in the Piedmont region, which has a long tradition of trade and many types of industry. So, we want to strengthen and diversify our presence in Italy. At present, we don’t have any definite plans to replicate what we are doing in Italy, with the exception of the Rambouillet platform in France. We are open to studying this issue depending on market development.” –Mark Holmes

(Contact: Vanessa O’Connor, Eutelsat, e:mail: voconnor@eutelsat.fr)