[SatNews] Member, European Parliament (MEP), Michela Giuffrida, hosted an European Parliament event organized with Eutelsat Communications (NYSE Euronext Paris: ETL) to encourage politicians to take action and use satellite technology to bring high-speed broadband to rural areas to bridge the Digital Divide.

In addition, the event addressed the role satellite can play in the future to achieve the Digital Agenda objectives for 2020 with increased broadband speeds of over 30Mbps. With 6 million* homes across the EU still unable to receive high-speed Internet access from traditional fixed land-based services, and with one third of all Internet subscriptions in the EU operating at speeds below 10 Mbps*, the event “Digital Divide in Rural Areas: Satellite Broadband Solutions” was designed to highlight how satellite can immediately bring speeds of up to 22Mbps to rural homes.

The event showcased how regions are successfully using EU funding and satellite technology to connect their communities using voucher schemes bringing communications, education, health and local economy benefits. With these schemes, residents in Digital Divide areas are entitled to a voucher covering the initial cost of the satellite broadband equipment and connectivity. This voucher can be used with a range of competitive suppliers, ensuring market competition.
 
Italian MEP Michela Giuffrida hosted and welcomed MEPs, national and regional politicians and civil servants and media to the Brussels event. Jean-Francois Bureau, Eutelsat’s Director of Institutional and International Affairs, explained how satellite broadband works and how it has already enabled hundreds of thousands of homes across the EU to get online. Eutelsat’s tooway™ satellite broadband service, for example, can be installed in any home across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, operates with a small (77cm), easy-to-install satellite dish and a modem without the need for a telephone line and is provided through KA-SAT, Europe’s most powerful satellite.
 
Christian Carriere, President of the Eure-Et-Loire Numerique organization in France, presented a best practice case study showing how regions can use satellite technology and EU funding with a voucher scheme to connect rural residents.
 
Speakers joined together for a panel debate and questions on the role of satellite broadband in national regional strategies within the EU Framework and the way forward with the new EU Digital Agenda and Single Market—involved were Normunds Popens, Deputy Director General of the EC’s DG REGIO; Mihail Dumitru, Deputy Director General of the EC’s DG AGRI; and Thibaut Kleiner, Head of Network Technologies at the EC’s DG CNECT.
 
MEP Michela Giuffrida said, “With so many rural communities across Europe still unable to access broadband, I am delighted to be able to bring together the key European, national and regional influencers to highlight how successful solutions have already been implemented and to discuss how more of these schemes can be created using the satellite technology and EU funding we have available today.”
 
“Voucher schemes, such as those in the Eure-et-Loir region in France, in Galicia in Spain and Piedmont in Italy, have already proven how effective they can be in overcoming the barriers of upfront hardware and connection costs and the challenges of how to deploy public funds effectively,” said Jean-Francois Bureau, Eutelsat’s Director of Institutional and International Affairs. “We hope that by organizing events such as this, we can encourage and demonstrate how other regions across Europe can help their communities to benefit from satellite broadband technology, such as Eutelsat’s Tooway™ service, which is already available across all of Europe today.”
 
For further information on The Digital Divide in Rural Areas: Satellite Broadband Solutions event, visit: http://goo.gl/9kbAud
 
More information about satellite broadband availability in Europe and local resellers can be found at: http://www.broadbandforall.eu/
 
For more information about tooway™ satellite broadband, please visit: http://www.tooway.com/
 
* EU Digital Agenda Scoreboard statistics