Minister Ryan Launches affordable Satellite Broadband across Ireland available through Digiweb Ltd.
Communications Minister Eamon Ryan, T.D this week announced Broadband and Web Hosting provider Digiweb’s partnership with Skylogic to offer full broadband coverage of Ireland through a new and affordable satellite innovation.

The service over Ireland will initially be based on space segment capacity available in the Ku band using the Eurobird 3A spot that has a good footprint covering Ireland. This satellite has been tested by Digiweb offering good performance with the use of 89cm antennas throughout Ireland.

The National Broadband Scheme (NBS) which is expected to bring broadband to the remaining 15% of the household, who currently cannot avail of broadband services, will take time to get to market and is operating at a headline speed which is ½ of that supported by the Digiweb’s Tooway service.  

The Digiweb Tooway offering will be a significant stepped improvement in the current satellite offerings that are available to customers in Ireland. It offers typically 4 times the speed for less than ½ the current price, and with a much reduced upfront cost for the satellite modem.

Commenting at the launch, Digiweb’s Head of Operations, Declan Campbell stated “this is an attractive offering for end-users that will offer much higher speeds and better reliability than can be achieved today with any 3G offerings, in addition we plan to launch an exciting Triple play bundle (Broadband, TV & Telephone) in the coming weeks to address those members of the population who will lose access to TV channels such as BBC1 and Channel 4 once the UK’s analogue Television signal is turned off.”

The new Digiweb satellite service is an innovative product known as Tooway. It is a unique joint venture between a satellite operator (Eutelsat), an equipment manufacturer (Viasat) and a successful European based teleport operator (Skylogic).

The service is based on the highly successful Surfbeam service that use high power spot beam satellites delivering low cost high capacity broadband over the USA. Tooway makes use of proven DOCSIS technology which will ensure a long term strategy for satellite service in Ireland.