IP over Satellite Standard Approved in Europe

IPoS was first ratified early in 2004 by the Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA), the primary standards body for the telecommunications industry in North America. In announcing ETSI approval, HNS said it will promote implementation of IPoS through a multi-tiered licensing program available to all industry equipment, software and service providers. Licensing will run from royalty free technical documentation, to the licensing of technology and technical support. IPoS is already endorsed by many leading industry providers including Microelectronics Technology, Inc. (MTI), Texas Instruments, TriQuint Semiconductor, Wind River Software, Intelsat, and Telefonica de Espana. IPoS is the only industry standard optimized for delivery of broadband services over satellite channels. IPoS specifies a Satellite Independent Service Access Point (SI-SAP), which creates a well defined interface between the satellite dependent functions and the application layers, thereby enabling an open service delivery platform. Other IPoS benefits include: * IPoS is scalable. IPoS is employed in HNS DIRECWAY(R) broadband satellite system and supports applications from a single home office to multinational customers operating a worldwide virtual private network. * IPoS is field proven. IPoS is the most widely used and proven standard, implemented in over 500,000 sites worldwide. Last year, HNS shipped more than 180,000 IPoS compliant terminals. * IPoS is cost effective. IPoS yields a low-cost terminal architecture that is optimized for satellite transmission, and enables the development of plug-and-play applications such as VPNs, VoIP, distance learning, and video conferencing.