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Europe Online unveils Technology for Marriage of Unicast/Multicast Satellite-delivered DSL High-Speed Internet Networks

Betzdorf, 08 May 2003

Europe Online, one of the world’s first and largest Internet via Satellite providers and holder of a system patent for “Integrated High-Speed Terrestrial and Satellite Communication Systems for Internet and other uses”, (*By Johnson et al, No. 009219734), has today unveiled a further technological breakthrough in high-speed satellite-delivered Internet with the announcement of a client application that “marries” the unicast/multicast experience for the end-user.

The integration of unicast/multicast technologies by Europe Online simultaneously ensures optimized bandwidth satellite utilization for satellite Internet operators and consumers alike. When installed on the user PC, the new Europe Online integrated unicast/multicast client automatically detects and delivers any requested file over 5 MB, i.e., MP3’s, Films, Software, Games, etc. to the users desktop via satellite at 2 Mbps with Forward Error Correction in multi-cast fashion, thus making efficient use of bandwidth for the operator and bringing high-speed 2Mbps channels to the user when he really needs it, i.e., for heavy downloads, all the while conserving high-speed unicast bandwidth for surfing up to 768 Kbps.

“It is well known that the satellite functions best in the broadcast or multicast mode,” declared Candace Johnson, President of Europe Online Investments S.A. “The challenge for all pioneers in the High-Speed Satellite via Internet field has been to capture this advantage which is essentially a broadcast mode and adapt it to individual or small group requests. Over the last four years, Europe Online has constantly continued to develop and optimize multicast technology with personalization, profiling, delivery, and intelligent network access tools in order to harness the power of multicast for the individual user. Today, with the unveiling of our unicast/multicast client application, we believe we have taken a giant leap forward in meeting this technological challenge”.

“From now on, when a Europe Online satellite Internet user is surfing and clicks on the desired site, file, or url, our client application will automatically search our Download Centre, which with more than 10,000 files of the most popular and continually updated MP3’s, Animations, Software, and Films represents a unique digital library and value-added service for our users, to find and immediately deliver the requested file via our 2Mbps multicast turbo download channels to the end-users. If the file is a less-well known file which no one has requested during the last ten days and thus not in our Digital Library, then our patented ‘File-Fetch’ application will search the web for the requested file and deliver it to the user via the 2Mbps multicast turbo download channels”, concluded Ms. Johnson.

The Europe Online integrated unicast/multicast client is currently being tested in a beta version first in the English language and then in all of Europe Online’s language services by Europe Online’s base of ca. 60,000 enabled users and will be included in Europe Online’s Version 2.0 software to be released to the public at large shortly.

For more information, please contact:

Europe Online Investments S.A. Press Contact in Germany
Candace Johnson, President Wortwerk Medien und Kommunikation, René Wagner
Tel. +352 719 785 1 Tel. +49 211 621 805 14
E-Mail: cj@europeonline.net E-Mail: wagner@wortwerk.com


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