About the Service

What is Tooway™?
Tooway™, which is characterized with competitive market prices and high quality, is satellite broadband service for Internet access designed for single or group of a few users across Europe.

Why should I get Tooway™?
If you’re faced with the prospect of ‘dial-up-only’ Internet access where you live, and there is no possibility for ADSL and LAN access, then Tooway™ is for you. It offers a broadband Internet access alternative to homes with low-speed narrowband connections. Tooway™ ensures close correlation price/performance for consumer satellite Internet access for single or group of a few users, living or working in rural areas across Europe, which are not covered with ADSL, CATV or LAN/RLAN connection.

What equipment is needed?
All you need is a 75 cm satellite dish and the Tooway™ satellite modem. No additional software needs to be installed on your computer to communicate with the Tooway™ satellite modem.

Is it necessary to have an additional telephone or other terrestrial or mobile connection?
No. Tooway™ doesn’t require any other telephone, terrestrial or mobile connection for the reverse channel, which were used in some technical solutions in the past.

Are there any special requirements to PCs?
No. Each PC (no matter what is the operating system – Windows, Linux or Macintosh), which has embedded network port 10/100 Mbps can be connected to the satellite modem without any additional software or hardware components.

How much does it cost?
Compared to the price, speed and quality of service, Tooway™ approaches the terrestrial broadband services, and in the same time provide alternative way for Internet access, where the only possibility is through low-speed telephone line (analogue, digital or mobile including 3G/UMTS). By jointly developing, the Tooway™ service, Eutelsat and ViaSat are ushering in an era of affordable, high-quality consumer satellite broadband services targeted to the mass market with lower price, which are developed to meet network access requirements for users.

How fast is Tooway™?
Tooway™ is offered in four subscription plans, which are with maximum speeds in downlink up to 22 Mbps (from Internet to the subscriber) and uplink up to 6 Mbps (from subscriber to the Internet). The difference in subscription plans is based on the traffic which can be transferred through the network.

The speeds which are available with Tooway™ are higher than GSM Dialup - 9.6 kbps, GPRS (2G) – up to 84 kbps, EDGE (2.5G) – up to 236 kbps, UMTS (3G) – up to 384 kbps and are closer to services based on HSDPA (3.5G) – from 3.6 to 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA(4G) – up to 5.76 Mbps offered from mobile networks in mass market. The last two services are available in the city centers of the big cities.

What are maximum speeds?
The SurfBeam 2 terminal is able to receive at speeds up to 20 Mbps. The 3 Watt transceiver allows transmission of data to the satellite by the consumer at speeds exceeding 22 Mbps according to the frequency band, the satellite, the remote antenna size, and the location of the VSAT terminal.

Can I install it myself?
Installation is recommended to be performed by our trained installers. The quality of the connection to the satellite respectively the quality of service is depending on good and precise installation. Special measurement appliance and special data for receive and transmit signal level are used for precise antenna adjustment towards the satellite.

What are azimuth and elevation angles from which the satellite used for Tooway™ service is visible?
KA-SAT™ satellite is located at 9.0° East on geostationary orbit and look angle towards it from Bulgaria is on azimuth from 200° to 208° and elevation above 37°. The exact angle can be calculated.

What is the availability of the Tooway™ service?
Above 99.5%. This means that Tooway™ service, provided simultaneously by network management station (HUB) and satellite located on geostationary orbit is accessible above 99.5% from 365 ? 24 hours= 8760 hours and could be not accessible in 43 hours and 48 minutes.

Can Tooway™ be integrated into a network?
Yes, it is only necessary to connect an IP Router between the LAN at your home and the satellite modem.

Can I use a wireless home network with Tooway™?
Yes, a Wi-Fi can be set up at additional cost. Alternatively, any Wi-Fi router can be connected to the Tooway™ modem, allowing you to enjoy wireless browsing.

Does Tooway™ offer triple-play services?
Tooway™ can be configured to receive television, with an additional receiver module, which is mounted on the same antenna, for receiving TV programs from adjacent satellites. In this case, it is necessary to add outside receiver module, connecting cable and receiver for satellite television. Using additional VoIP adapter and a standard telephone, you can use voice over IP services.

Can I receive TV channels via Tooway™ ODU?
At the moment, there is no integrated solution.

Can I use the antenna for Satellite television for Tooway™ service?
No. The antenna for satellite TV is receive-only. It is using transmit-receive antenna for two-way connection through satellite, which has narrower antenna aperture, it is solid and is designed to stand operational at wind loading up to 120 km/h and survive up to 200 km/h.

Is Tooway™ suitable for playing online games?
Yes. Some games could be experienced with some delay because of the long distance path between earth station – satellite – earth station (two times 36 000 km) which the signal should pass.

What could happen if there is an infected PC with viruses, connected to the Internet through Tooway™ service?
It is possible the whole traffic from PC to be generated from virus programs and to be so much to overload satellite communication channel and to activate the FAP (Fair Access Policy) which will apply restrictions to the operations of the Tooway™ terminal.

What can I do, if the standard mount type for VSAT for antenna is not suitable for the specified by me location for mounting?
It can be made other suitable mount for the specified location (roof mount – flat or inclined, mount for ground or others).

Does the Tooway™ service suffer from bad weather conditions (rain and snow)?
Heavy snow covering more than half of the surface of the antenna could affect the quality of service. In this case it is recommended to clean the antenna from snow. It is not recommended to pour antenna on with hot water or scratch it with sharp tools, which can damage the radio equipment. Obstacles in line of site to the satellite could also be a reason for bad quality of service. These obstacles could appear after installation and activation of the service. It is recommended to have clear visibility towards the satellite.

What kind of subscription plan should I choose?
By answering the traffic calculator questions you can see what your usual monthly usage is. Using this information you can choose the subscription plan that suits you best.

What technology is Tooway™ based on?
Tooway™ is based on ViaSat’s SurfBeam® DOCSIS® two-way broadband satellite system. Unlike other consumer satellite-based Internet services, this system requires no connection via cable or phone lines for receiver channel. The SurfBeam system is well established in North-America (the Wildblue project, intended to above 1 million consumers and operate with two satellites). It is a highly scaleable open standards-based platform that lowers the cost of consumer terminals and services significantly by using cable modem networking technology, DOCSIS 1.1, a widely used open standard. To adapt the standard to satellites, ViaSat has developed a satellite air interface that is seamlessly integrated into DOCSIS head-end termination systems.

How long is the time delay with satellite data transmissions?
Geostationary satellites are located in orbit approximately 36,000 kilometres above the equator (Clarke belt orbital position, where attraction of the earth gravitation is approximately equal to centrifugal force and the objects leave the boundary of earth gravitation influence). A roundtrip to a satellite for data needs about 253 msec with one pass through satellite and above 600 msec, if it is used applications, based on protocols requiring more than one pass through satellite. To mitigate latency, which would impact on TCP throughput and web browsing speeds, a Performance Enhancing Proxy (PEP) and Web acceleration are integrated into the SurfBeam modem and DOCSIS head-end system.

How stable is the Tooway™ service in bad weather?
At one time, heavy rain was thought to be a cause of bad quality of service through satellite connections. Indeed, the reduction of signal level is so important that it was difficult to guarantee a high-quality service, using not so much expensive equipment. ViaSat has included in the SurfBeam system satellite air interface technology that mitigates rain fade. The SurfBeam system automatically responds to rain fade with uplink power control and adaptive data coding techniques (Adaptive Coding and Modulation - ACM) that overcome potential outages, while optimizing the use of satellite transponder bandwidth and its power. This gives the Tooway™ network higher reliability compared to other two-way consumer satellite services for single or group of users, offered in Europe.

What frequency bands and geographical areas operates Tooway™ service?
Tooway™ service offered in Bulgaria operates in Ku- band capacity on the company’s EUROBIRD™ 3 satellite at 33° East orbital position. The satellite is made by Boeing Satellite System, has 20 transponders in Ku-band, launched with carrier-rocket Ariana-5 on 29 of March 2003 year and it is planned to be used till 2015 year.
In 2011, Eutelsat launched new satellite which operates in Ka-band with capacity more than used this time.

What are Ku and Ka-band and what are their advantages?
Broadcast satellites principally operate in Ku-band frequencies that have the benefit of offering a broad geographic coverage through a single footprint. Ka-band, which is now beginning to be exploited over Europe, has other benefits.
International telecommunication union (ITU) allows increasing the frequency band for each satellite (up to 1 GHz for each orbital slot). For dedicated two-way communications technology with many separate beams, respectively many spot beams allows extensive frequency reuse, effectively lowering the cost of the spectrum. This allows for higher transmission rates, supporting higher peak speeds for individual subscribers. The higher Ka-band frequencies allow smaller antennas to be employed for the subscriber equipment, which will reflect to vastly decreasing equipment price.

Who handles the platform operations?
Located in the SkyPark teleport in Turin, Italy, the platform and hub operations for the Tooway network will be operated by Eutelsat’s broadband subsidiary Skylogic. Skylogic is daughter company and is 100 % owned by Eutelsat. Skylogic is established for developing broadband services and has more than 50 people on each site for a total of 14 hubs and 8 Eutelsat satellites. Staff work around the clock at the teleport to maintain the highest availability of service.

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