20 July, 2004: As part of its strategy to meet demand for broadband from corporate clients throughout the UK and continental Europe, BT Broadcast Services (BTBS), the broadcast and media solutions arm of BT, has selected Eutelsat's D-Star service to complement its existing capabilities for two-way broadband.

BTBS' Satellite Broadband Enterprise service will use D-Star to provide IP connectivity to corporate sites at high bit rates up to 2Mbits/s downstream and 1Mbits/s upstream, giving their corporate customers a competitive edge even where they are out of reach of terrestrial broadband options. D-Star is totally independent from any terrestrial infrastructure and is particularly adapted for LAN to LAN connections, for VPN and MPLS applications including remote access to databases, Internet and Intranet access, corporate business television and distance learning.

With several thousand terminals already activated and based on the DVB-RCS open standard, D-Star is one of the leading satellite broadband solutions available today for corporate clients and government agencies. The service is provided by Eutelsat through its SKYLOGIC multimedia platform in Turin (Italy) which is directly connected to the Internet backbone and operates through capacity on six of the company's satellites, each optimised to address different geographic regions.

"Satellite Broadband Enterprise is the answer for corporate networks needing high speed return channels from remote sites and looking for high quality service", said Mark Smith, managing director of BTBS. "BTBS' corporate network experience, coupled with Eutelsat's geographic coverage, presents a compelling proposition to corporates. Furthermore, this service now completes BTBS' portfolio of satellite access solutions, which allow connectivity on a global basis across a wide selection of data rates through different platforms."