Monday, January 14, 2008

Swisscom to Offer Eutelsat's Tooway Satellite service

Swisscom will offer Eutelsat's Tooway service as the satellite component of a its universal broadband programme for all Swiss homes.


Swisscom won a tender from the Swiss Ministry for Telecommunications to make broadband connectivity available as from January 2008 to all residential Swiss customers irrespective of their location. The service will be supplied to households via Bluewin, Swisscom's Internet Service Provider. From its Zurich facilities, Bluewin will be connected by fiber to the Tooway Network Operation Centre managed by Eutelsat's broadband affiliate Skylogic in Turin.


Tooway is delivered through a partnership between Eutelsat and ViaSat. Using Ka-band capacity on Eutelsat's HOT BIRD 6 satellite for both forward and return links, Tooway is based on the SurfBeam DOCSIS broadband satellite system developed by ViaSat and already widely deployed in North America. http://www.tooway.nehttp://www.swisscom.com

  • The new "Tooway" service is being delivered using the Ka-band spot beam capacity on Eutelsat's HOT BIRD 6 satellite at 13 degrees East. It will also be available via Ku-band capacity on the EUROBIRD 3 satellite. The Ka and Ku-band hubs with equipment supplied by ViaSat to manage Tooway are now fully commissioned and ready for service at Skylogic's SkyPark teleport in Turin, Italy.


  • ViaSat's SurfBeam DOCSIS terminals are already used by over 325,000 subscriber homes in North America to deliver ADSL-like services, with a peak of almost 90,000 units shipped over the last three months.