UK to get Sat broadband for £30

Fingers and toes crossed

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Telecoms, 4th October 2002 15:48 GMT

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Two companies are to launch one-way broadband satellite services for prices that come close to the cost of ADSL. More importantly, the service would be accessible from almost anywhere in the UK.

Full details have yet to be released but Leeds-based ISP Everywhere Broadband claims its service will start at around £20 a month for a metered service, with a full unmetered service costing around £30 month. Installation costs are understood to be more than £200.

This service is based on Eutelsat's Opensky service, which provides downloads via satellite of speeds up to 1.5 Mbps. Information is uploaded via a standard phone line.

According to Everywhere Broadband boss Graham Roberts, this service is designed for the consumer mass market and small businesses. It is due to be launched later this year.

Elsewhere, independent satellite broadband provider Isonetric Broadband, claims to have released a product to "compete directly with ADSL". The £30 a-month service will give users up to 1mbps of bandwidth downstream enabling them to access broadband content on the Net.

Users will be expected to bear the cost of upstream connection through their ISP. Hardware costs and installation costs a smidge under £300.

This is not the first time satellite services have been available in the UK. For instance, earlier this year BT Wholesale announced plans to begin trials of 256kbs one-way satellite service aimed at home users and small businesses.

And BTopenworld has around 1,000 users of its two-way broadband satellite service, but that costs an arm and a leg. Furthermore, BTo gets a bit uppity if customers use it too much. ®