IPstar broadband satellite services launched in China

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 30 May 2006 10:16

Your IT - Home IT

See also: IPStar launched successfully
Free video-over-IP calling via IPStar

Thai satellite operator, Shin Satellite, has opened the first gateway earth station in China for its Ipstar broadband satellite that promises to deliver broadband services at prices comparable to terrestrial networks.

Ipstar services are being provided in China by China Satcom. The earth station, in Beijing, is able to provide services to the northern part of China. Two more gateways, at Shanghai and Guangzhou, will be constructed this year to allow China Satcom to provide Ipstar services to the whole country.

Ipstar-1 (otherwise known as Thaicom 4) is the world's largest commercial satellite. It was launched in August 2005 after 18 months of delays to provide the Asia-Pacific region with high-speed Internet access and IP services including voice, data and multimedia. It has coverage of 14 countries in Asia-Pacific, with a total bandwidth of more than 45Gbps and is designed to provide users with data speeds of up to 4Mbps on the forward link and 2Mbps on the return link. It will use its seven on-board antennas to create 112 spot and regional beams in the Ku and Ka bands.

Introduction of Ipstar services is likely to usher in a new era of broadband satellite communications in China. When Australian telco Macquarie Telecom announced last year that it would offer IPStar services the company said they were "a quantum leap ahead of anything else... a price performance breakthrough...significantly cheaper than current satellite offerings".

Macquarie claimed IPStar would make it economic to provide a 2Mbps service to a business in a remote town such as Alice Springs in the heart of Australia for which the cost of terrestrial services is prohibitive.

China Satcom was set up as part of the Chinese Government's industry plan to extend satellite services to the country. It intends to offer satellite-based broadband leased lines, virtual private networks and various telephony, data and multimedia services for corporate customers, among other high speed services.