[SatNews] The Company is going to be bringing new communications capabilities to many in the U.K. who have little, or no, connectivity...

Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) has a new contract between its broadband subsidiary, Skylogic, and UK satellite communications specialist, Avonline, to sell broadband services in the UK via KA-SAT, the first European High Throughput Satellite. The contract, valued at up to 5 million euros, will allow Avonline to sell Eutelsat’s next generation Tooway™ satellite broadband service. With download speeds of up to 10 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 4 Mbps, Tooway™ satellite broadband will bring fast, reliable and affordable Internet access across the UK, including rural not spots and areas with poor ADSL and mobile broadband coverage. Currently more than one in ten UK households is unable to receive a 2 Mbps broadband connection – the minimum target requirement set by the UK Government.

Avonline is one of the UK’s leading digital and broadband installation companies, with a team of approximately 400 engineers delivering high quality services across the UK and Ireland. The company has been involved in satellite broadband for almost a decade and has been the UK’s largest provider of Tooway™ services in the UK over the past two years. The next-generation Tooway™ service will be delivered via Eutelsat’s innovative KA-SAT satellite, which was launched in December 2010 and is on track to go into full commercial service mid-2011. With its total capacity of more than 70 Gbps, KA-SAT ranks as the world's most powerful spacecraft and, as Europe's first High-Throughput Satellite (HTS), will usher in a new era of competitively-priced satellite-delivered services for homes and small businesses across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. The satellite forms the cornerstone of a new European satellite infrastructure which includes eight main satellite gateways across Europe connected to the Internet by a fibre backbone ring.