Digital Rendering of Eutelsat 36C. Photo: Airbus Defence and Space

[Via Satellite 09-15-2016] TricolorTV, a Russian pay-TV platform with 12 million subscribers, has officially launched its new broadband service using the high throughput Ka-band capacity on the Eutelsat 36C satellite commercialized by Eutelsat Communications. The new service offers consumer and professional subscribers Internet access with speeds of up to 40 Mbps downstream and 12 Mbps upstream, with a range of tariffs tailored to end-user requirements.

Launched in December 2015, the Eutelsat 36C satellite features high-power capacity for TV broadcasting in European parts of the Russian Federation and a high throughput payload comprising 18 Ka-band beams delivering continuous coverage of Western Russia, from the Arctic coastline to the Caspian Sea. Eutelsat selected Gilat’s SkyEdge II-c hub with X-Architecture and SkyEdge II-c small user terminals to power broadband services from Eutelsat 36C from a hub installed at the Dubna satellite center operated by RSCC, near Moscow.

In addition to collaborating on broadband deployment, Eutelsat and TricolorTV announced in July the launch in Russia of a multi-screen video delivery service using Eutelsat’s new SmartBeam solution that receives high-quality TV channels and Vide on Demand (VOD) content via satellite and serves it locally to mobile phones and tablets over a Wi-Fi network.