France enlists satellite broadband services of Tooway

French telecoms company SFR has chosen satellite broadband firm Tooway to provide internet services in rural parts of France that are a long way from telephone exchanges.

As is also the case in Britain, France has been faced with the problem of how to provide sufficiently fast broadband services to customers in more remote parts of the country where laying fibre optic cabling is not commercially viable, reports TechWatch.

In the UK, the government is considering technologies including satellite services and community-wide wireless networking, but in France many rural residents will be offered satellite broadband through SFR.

Services will initially be provided through the Eutelsat Hot Bird 6 satellite, with the next-generation KA SAT satellites due to be phased in towards the end of next year.

The technology could help provide faster services and more efficient use of VoIP solutions.

The UK government has pledged to connect every home to a broadband service of two megabits per second by 2012.