Telekom Austria has started to sell high-speed satellite broadband services under the A1 brand in Austria after it expanded an existing alliance with Eutelsat in order to “round off” the incumbent operator’s fixed and mobile Internet services.
The Austrian group said the satellite service would complement its existing broadband services to ensure 100% broadband coverage in Austria. It added that the expanded cooperation with Eutelsat will also enable it to sell triple-play services including broadband, voice telephony and TV: the two companies originally formed a partnership in September 2013 to deliver TV services via satellite in Central and Eastern Europe.
In Austria, the satellite service will be used primarily to serve frontier zones and mountain regions where the nearest A1 switching centre or the closest mobile base station is too far away to enable broadband Internet. Around 1% of buildings in Austria have no access to DSL services, the company said.
“We are delighted to be able to announce the expansion of our partnership with Eutelsat. Based on these broadband services, we are now in a position to reach those remotely located areas across our operating footprint, which have not had access to our Internet infrastructure to date. SAT broadband is therefore a perfect supplement to our existing network infrastructure as it allows us to meet this additional demand for Internet coverage,” said Stefan Amon, director of wholesale at the Telekom Austria Group.
Later in 2015, the company also plans to roll out the satellite broadband services to other Telekom Austria markets in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE): it estimates that one out of three households have no Internet access in some of its markets in this region.
The satellite broadband is expected to provide download and upload speeds of up to 22 and 6 Mbps respectively.
