Objectives

Achieving operational and fast broadband

To foster the emergence of a new generation of satellites dedicated to fast-broadband Internet access and thus enable exhaustive coverage of the national territory, the government gave the go-ahead for the THD-Sat R&D project under the digital economy budget line of the PIA future investment programme.

The objectives of THD-Sat project are to:

• Continue improving the performance of telecommunication satellites and ground segments (peak and average rates, uploading and downloading, etc.) while reducing the cost of the bandwidth and user terminals
• Develop the required technology building blocks for satellite fast-broadband (in orbit within the 2017-2018 timeframe)
• Nurture a national industrial sector able to propose, from existing technologies, fast-broadband Internet access solutions to telecommunication operators

Fast-broadband satellite services include:

• Very-high-speed Internet connection
• Two-way Internet access
• Real-time communication including telephony and video telephony over IP
• Download rates from 1 000 Mbps for private citizens and 200 Mbps for professionals
• Upload rates of 20 Mbps for private citizens and 50 Mbps for professionals

• Integration in home networks

• Advanced television services