Telekom Austria Group announced that its domestic subsidiary A1 will offer satellite broadband in Austria to cover areas where the nearest A1 switching center or the closest mobile base station is too far away to enable broadband internet. In Austria the number of buildings that are not covered by the A1 communications infrastructure and therefore have no DSL-based Internet access is estimated to amount to roughly 1 percent. In a cooperation with Eutelsat, Telekom Austria will enable satellite broadband services with download and upload speeds of up to 22 and 6 Mbps respectively. Satellite services are available in all A1 shops across Austria. In order to directly communicate with the Ka-Sat satellite, the service requires a small satellite dish and modem and operates without the need for a fixed telephone line.
