Poste Italiane selects Eutelsat’s Tooway satellite broadband service to take broadband across Italy

20 November 2013

Poste Italiane and Eutelsat Communications signed an agreement that will significantly contribute to the digitalisation of Italy and the reduction of the digital divide. The agreement to commercialise the Tooway satellite broadband service was signed by Massimo Sarmi, CEO of Poste Italiane and Michel de Rosen, Chairman and CEO of Eutelsat in the framework of today's Franco-Italian bilateral summit in Rome in the presence of Enrico Letta, the Italian Prime Minister and François Hollande, President of the French Republic.

This new step transforms the broadband landscape in Italy where 2.37 million Italians in 3,600 towns and villages* are still unable to benefit from a quality Internet connection for education, entertainment, communication and e-commerce. The Tooway service will be available locally through Poste Mobile in Poste Italiane offices and through their business sellers, with the priority to serve regions beyond range of terrestrial broadband from first quarter 2014.

The Tooway service works in conjunction with Eutelsat’s KA-SAT satellite, enabling users to easily connect to the Internet anywhere and benefit from download speeds of up to 20 Mbps and upload speeds up to 6 Mbps. The service requires a small dish and a satellite modem connected to a computer. The dish can be self-installed or by one of the 4,000 installers across Europe that have been trained and certified by Eutelsat, of which over 1,000 are located in Italy. Using the same dish, Tooway also offers features that include multi-channel television and VoIP for full triple play, as well as a wireless home network.

"This agreement with Eutelsat opens a new chapter in the Poste Italiane’s commitment to progressively bring digital services across the country,” said Massimo Sarmi at the signature. “The Tooway technology will soon be available to connect large areas of Italy unable to benefit from the terrestrial broadband network. The goal of this partnership with Eutelsat is to help reduce the digital divide and bring individuals and businesses the opportunity to fully develop e-commerce and cloud computing services."

Michel de Rosen added: “This is another major step towards building a digital economy open to all in Italy, leveraging the broadband expertise of our Eutelsat Broadband unit. There is a strong history of Franco-Italian co-operation in the space industry and we are delighted to be working with Poste Mobile to use the latest generation of satellite technology to address a very real broadband challenge. We at Eutelsat are very proud of being at the forefront of a Europe-wide effort to propel our continent to the next level of the Digital Age.”