Wave Issue 9039 X/XX/99 Article 7-01

***Intelsat Starts Satellite Internet Multicasting Service Trials
(Arpil 1)

According to Newsbytes, Intelsat started pre-commercial trials of
its satellite Internet multicasting service from the Intelsat 603
satellite.

The satellite, located at 335.5 degrees East, will beam a giant
Web cache across its beam path, down to satellite dish-based
receivers operated by Internet service providers (ISPs).

ISPs taking part in the trials include British Telecom (BT),
Comsat, C Embratel, France Telecom, KPN International, the
Telecom Authority of Cyprus, Telecom Egypt/IDSC, Teleglobe, and
Telia.

According to Intelsat, its satellite Internet Distribution System
(IDS) continuously caches most pages on the Web and multicasts
them to ISPs around the world.

The ISD connection means that ISPs can now build their own cache
operations, using the wide bandwidth available across the
satellite connection to ensure that the pages are kept up to
date.

The bottom line for ISPs is that there is a reduced cost of
accessing and caching international Web sites. For the ISP’s
customers, meanwhile, international and popular Web pages can be
accessed far more quickly, without the pages being demonstrably
out of date, as is the case with some caching systems.

For the field trial, Teleglobe will operate the main warehouse
for Web pages at one of its network service facilities in Canada.
The Internet content will then be multicast from a primary cache
at the warehouse through one of Teleglobe’s Intelsat earth
stations to kiosk sites in the UK, the US, Brazil, France,
Cyprus, Egypt, the Netherlands, Canada, and Sweden.

These kiosk sites will then receive content to be stored in a
local cache on a “push” or “pull” request basis for the ISPs and
their subscribers.

Intelsat’s multicast-to-cache service platform prototype was
developed by A&T Systems. Plans call for commercial service to be
rolled later this year, initially on non-time-critical Web pages,
but ramping up the service as required.

Plans call for the service to be ramped up to handle true
Internet push applications involving content publishers and
providers on a subscription basis. This service will allow
customers of the ISPs concerned to have access to wide band
streaming video and audio transmissions on the Web.

www.intelsat.int