Hughes Network Systems Corp and Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA have launched equally-owned Hughes Olivetti Telecom, to build and manage Hotstar, a pan-European digital satellite network for speech, data and video communications. Each is putting up an initial $2m and expect total investment to reach $24m over the next few years. The new company will take over the existing Very Small Aperture Terminal operations of Hughes in the UK and will take Maxat Ltd, the UK satellite company, as external partner for marketing and operations from the hub in the UK. It is looking to establish other hubs in Europe and is in talks with other services companies. Hotstar, a star network, promises two-way data communications with high and flexible bandwidth availability, multiple simultaneous protocol support and local network linking; tariffs will be distance-independent and under half the price of X25 terrestrial telecommunications of medium traffic. Hotstar uses Eutelsat 2, and covers the whole of Europe to 50 miles east of Moscow. It can also be connected with Hughes’s US network. It will pitch to banks, insurance and financial institutions, retail organisations, airline and others that cannot justify building a private network and can benefit from sharing a hub. The fees it charges will be determined by volume of traffic, the number of users, and bandwidth required.
