Eutelsat Establishes Program for KA-SAT Distribution; Wins SSPI Better Satellite World Award

Eurobroadband Infrastructure (EBI), a subsidiary of Eutelsat, is launching a Preferred Partner Programme for the distribution of capacity on its KA-SAT satellite. In addition, The Space & Satellite Professionals International recognized the signatories to the Crisis Connectivity Charter, including Eutelsat, with the Better Satellite World Award during a ceremony in London, which annually acknowledges the contributions of the satellite industry to the global economy, safety, security, governance, development, and health.

Preferred Partner Program Boosts KA-SAT Capacity Distribution
The program aims at revitalizing the distribution of KA-SAT capacity to boost the deployment of internet access via satellite, further bridging the digital divide, in line with EU 2020 targets.

The program relates to the exclusive commercialization of capacity on KA-SAT under the Konnect brand. EBI will provide satellite network capacity as well as assistance with subscriber premises equipment and installation and marketing to support the Konnect brand. Preferred partners will actively promote and sell Konnect satellite broadband services and assist subscriber management-related activities. The program incorporates differentiated Gold and Silver partnership levels. In particular, Gold partners will be able to offer new unlimited packages with broadband speeds of up to 50 Mbit/s download (and 6 Mbit/s upload), a service comparable to terrestrial networks.

Selected partners already signed up to the programme include Bigblu Broadband plc and skyDSL at Gold partner level. Silver partners include Skycyl/Nimvox in Spain, ESER Telekom in Turkey, and Nortis in Morocco.

“With this program, we are reinforcing our relationship with key distribution partners through a shared approach aimed at bringing broadband quickly and effectively to consumers across Europe and beyond,” says Catherine Carde, CEO of Eurobroadband Infrastructure. “Together we will accelerate the delivery of the fastest available residential satellite broadband service packages. The launch of this program also completes the overhaul of EBI’s distribution strategy and notably the relaunch of the wholesale model, focused on selected specialist distribution partners and major telcos.”

SSPI Better Satellite World Award
The Crisis Connectivity Charter was signed in late 2015 between the Global VSAT Forum (GVF), the EMEA Satellite Operators Association (ESOA), the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA), and the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) to help the humanitarian community by enhancing their access to vital satellite-based communications when local networks are affected, destroyed, or overloaded following disasters. It entered into its operational phase in May of this year through the signature of contribution agreements with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), on behalf of the ETC.

In the context of the Charter, Eutelsat has committed pre-allocated bandwidth on four of its satellites across the globe, complemented on the ground by ready-to-deploy satellite kits, enabling emergency telecommunications services to be deployed in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas within 24 hours of a crisis.

“We are honored to be receiving this award as a signatory of the Crisis Connectivity Charter,” comments Simon Gray, Vice President of Humanitarian Affairs of Eutelsat. “The resilience and quick deployment of satellite solutions place our industry in a unique position to support relief efforts and we are proud to be the first industrial sector to be undertaking such a unified effort to standardize disaster response on a global scale.”