The start-up from Sophia Antipolis has signed an agreement with Alcatel Space. It will provides to them the technologie which allows to diffuse contents on the Net through the satellite. A key element for Skybridge.
Although it has been signed only late last week, the agreement between the giant Alcatel Space and a start-up from Sophia Antipolis has been negotiated before Jean-Claude Husson, the CEO of the company, came on the research park looking for emerging companies and technologies. UDCast, a start-up created in June 2000 by searchers from the INRIA, is specialized in diffusion on Internet through the satellite. Alcatel Space was looking for such a technology.
Broadband services for Skybridge
The first European satellite manufacturer has always been ahead to launch the big project Skybridge. The project of a multimedia satellite galaxy. But, in order to avoid the setbacks experienced by Iridium for instance, they wish to test some multimedia services, before they decide to built satellites and to put them into orbit.
UDCast will allow them to do so. The company creates software providing data transmission on Internet through the satellite. The whole team of searchers comes from the Rodeo project of the INRIA. A project which was dealing with the broadband Internet and which was initiated by Christian Huitema. What's the advantage of their technology ? The initials : UDLR (UniDirectional Link Routing). The control of unidirectional links which are in essence those of satellite links.
Basically the satellite diffuses on a wide area and serves several points. He is 'multicast' and can be received as a TV program thanks to simple parabolic antenna. But it's much more difficult for the basic customer to send back a piece of information on the satellite. The link is unidirectional. It works only in one way.
A great turning point for Internet by satellite
So, the whole strategy of UDCast is to provide by satellite the 'delivery' of data requiring the broadband and to use more traditional Internet networks to send back pieces of information. And in really transparent way, that is to say that the user doesn't realize it. Thus the video will come form the sky. The satellite can reach transfer rates up to 40 Megabits per second. But the consumer who wants this video, will still ask for it through the usual network.
This technology was the point of the agreement with Alcatel Space. It will be integrated into solutions that the French group provides to satellite operators all over the world as well as into Skybridge in order to offer broadband accesses by the sky (the amount of the agreement has been kept secret).
This OEM agreement (Original Equipment Manufacturer) 'marks an unprecedented turning point in the development of Internet by satellite,'it is indicated in a press release. As far as the CEO of UDCast, Didier Tymen, the only one of the team who doesn't come from the INRIA, is concerned, he's delighted about this agreement. 'That's a gratitude for an innovating company like ours to be chosen as the key provider of this technology by one of the world's leaders of the satellite and telecommunication industry'he declared. It's true that he can be satisfied with such results. As in the La Fontaine's fable, the small one comes to help the big one. The lion and the mouse...