Eutelsat will work with Italy's national inter-university consortium for telecommunications (CNIT) to provide Ka-band satellite capacity to set up a new satellite-based tele-education network which will enable postgraduate students to pursue their studies for a telecommunications doctorate remotely.
The network will operate via Ka-band capacity on the Italsat F2 satellite that Eutelsat is using in advance of full commercialisation of the Ka-band on its HOT BIRD* 6 satellite that is due for launch in just over one year.
It will also use capacity on a bandwidth-on-demand basis that will enable CNIT to manage its fully meshed network with a high degree of efficiency, as well as two-way satellite interactivity.
The telecommunications doctorate consists of 27 seminars in English of 10 hours each, that can be watched real-time, recorded for playback or made available for web-based training.
Telespazio, a company specialised in satellite systems and services that is part of the Telecom Italia Group, is currently setting up and managing the earth stations at the first seven of the 26 universities that are part of the CNIT (Bologna, Catania, Genoa, Florence, Naples, Padua and Pisa) with a view to going live in first quarter 2001.
Eutelsat Director General Giuliano Berretta said on the agreement: "This new network marks our entry into the Ka-band in advance of full commercialisation of capacity on HOT BIRD¿ 6. I am very pleased that new technologies that we are developing can support the academic community's ambition to increase inter-university cooperation and distance-learning. I am equally delighted that Eutelsat is participating in the education of a new multimedia generation that will soon be shaping our future."
CNIT Director Franco Russo declared: "The agreement with Eutelsat represents a major step for CNIT in the area of services for multimedia distance learning, making it possible to deliver to our graduate students nationwide the most complete and advanced expertise available in the Italian Universities. Satellite communication for distance learning is expected to spread in the future, as the university system is strengthening its cooperation in this direction in order to increase the efficiency and the quality of service."
In addition to providing full coverage of Italy the footprint provided by Italsat's Ka-band includes southern France, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Montenegro, parts of Serbia, Kosovo and the northern regions of Greece and Tunisia.
