Better rural broadband

Purpose and goal

The main objective of the project has been to develop products that can be used to increase bandwidth for households that lack high speed Internet connectivity. We have reached this objective by developing a system that can augment an existing ADSL connection by adding a satellite link for incoming data. The system can in a cost efficient manner provide a good user experience for high bandwidth services such as video as well as for real-time services such as IP telephony.

Expected results and effects

Over 10 million rural European households cannot get more than maximum 2 Mbit/s from their ADSL connection, excluding these households from high bandwidth services such as video, distance education and telemedicine. During the project we have developed products that will give telecom operators the possibility to offer their customers improved internet connectivity, without the need for costly infrastructure investments. We have together with a large European incumbent telecom operator made extensive tests to ensure that the system works as expected.

Planned approach and implementation

The system we have developed consists of two products: A satellite modem, a new product optimized for this type of service A satellite gateway, a further development based on one of Forsway´s existing products We have had clear advantages of having earlier experience from developing IP based services over satellite. By partly basing the development on existing products we have been able to minimize development risks, and could follow the existing development plan. A comprehensive pilot test during the last phase of the project clearly showed that we have reached the objectives.