Home >> News: May 26th, 2009 >> Story
Satnews Daily
May 26th, 2009

A Herculean Task Possibly Just Ahead For Avanti


Avanti Communications homepage Avanti Communications Groupplc(AIM: AVN) has been awarded a project by the European Space Agency contributing 250,000 euros in 2009 to the cost of work on a Preliminary Design Review of a new satellite system called Hercules.

This system has been proposed to the Department of Business, Enterpriseand Regulatory Reform ("BERR") as part of Avanti's response to the Digital Britain consultation. The Hercules system could provide a low cost method for delivery of broadband services at speeds between 2Mb and 50Mb to the 2.5 million rural homes in the U.K. which have been ID'd as unable to access terrestrial high speed broadband. The Digital Britain consultation has discussed ways to implement a Universal Service Commitment to solve this challenge. Avanti's first satellite, HYLAS, will solve a portion of this problem, but the market in the U.K. for high speed rural broadband is much bigger than most industry participants previously imagined. The Technology Strategy Board, a partner of the British National Space Centre, has supported Avanti in this ESA application, which is designed to ensure that if BERR decides to proceed withmajor government initiatives to solve the rural broadband challenge, the Hercules concept has been de-risked and fully scoped, and is capable of a rapid project commencement.