Loral Orion Introduces Multicast Newsfeed
Satellite-Based Service to Deliver Worldwide Internet News to ISPs
Cost-Effectively and More Efficiently
Rockville, Md., January 27, 1999 - Loral Orion today introduced a new multicast service that delivers news to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) globally. The new service, called WorldCast Newsfeed, will enable ISPs to receive high-bandwidth news from the Internet efficiently using Loral satellites, thereby minimizing terrestrial network costs.
"We added WorldCast Newsfeed to our WorldCast family of services to better meet the needs of ISPs around the world," said Neil Bauer, president of Loral Orion. "We have met their requirements for cost-effective access to the Internet and now our Newsfeed service, by offering high-bandwidth satellites as an alternative to expensive terrestrial infrastructure, will alleviate the congestion on ISP networks caused by expanding news content from sources such as Usenet."
Usenet is the Internet's news source that comprises more than 25,000 user groups worldwide involved in posting and receiving articles. All users with Internet access may receive and post articles to the Usenet newsgroups. Traditionally, articles are posted to an ISP's news server and then relayed to other news servers using Network News Transport Protocol. In this process, only new articles are delivered, not those that have been received previously. This transport process eventually delivers articles one at a time to each ISP, slowly and inefficiently.
Loral Orion's innovative WorldCast Newsfeed service delivers the articles integrated from sources on the Internet via a broadband data stream. WorldCast Newsfeed is designed specifically to lower an ISP's costs to receive these news articles by providing a stream of articles directly to the ISP's rooftop. The service also decreases the congestion on an ISP's network by placing this large volume of data onto high-bandwidth satellites.
Loral Orion initially will provide the service in Europe in mid-1999, selling it to new and existing ISP customers. The company plans to extend the service to customers in Asia Pacific, India, and Latin America later in 1999 using existing Loral satellites and SatMex 5, as well as new Loral satellites, including Orion 2 and Orion 3, once they are operational.
Loral Orion's Newsfeed service provides ISPs with a direct, integrated newsfeed stream delivered over a dedicated, 2 megabit-per-second multicast channel via satellite. This satellite-based solution allows large amounts of Usenet traffic located on the Internet to reach multiple service points simultaneously by using the company's multicast delivery technology. WorldCast Newsfeed builds upon the Internet technologies used for Loral Orion's WorldCast Internet access services. The Newsfeed service adds an important source of content to the access that Loral Orion has been effectively offering to ISPs globally since early 1997.
Loral Orion, based in Rockville, Md., is a subsidiary of Loral Space & Communications. Loral Orion is focused on providing global Internet access, data networking and content delivery service. In addition to offering a variety of satellite-based Internet services to ISPs and multinational businesses worldwide, Loral Orion provides managed network services to corporate customers around the globe. Services include data networking, voice, video, teleconferencing and news distribution to multiple points worldwide. For more information, visit Loral Orion's Web site at loralorion.com.
Loral Space & Communications is a high technology company that primarily concentrates on satellite manufacturing and satellite-based services, including broadcast transponder leasing and value-added services, domestic and international corporate data networks, global wireless telephony, broadband data services, Internet services, and international direct-to-home satellite services. For more information, visit Loral's Web site at loral.com. |
