It runs through outer space. While the offerings are currently too expensive for consumers, they do offer the tantalizing prospect of a day when high-speed Net access will be available to anyone under the sky. But in remote areas, in India, in China, in places where infrastructure doesn't really exist, it will be an alternative. Direct service is already available in Thailand and will soon debut in Malaysia. A spate of satellites sent into orbit for direct-TV resulted in a glut of transmission capacity.
Operators now hope to sop it up with Internet traffic.
What sets the systems apart is they operate using what is known as ku-band radio frequencies. The freebies stop there. While absurd for home users at that price, businesses and hotels can use the satellite link for internal networks of up to 10 computers. But so far, Thaicom Direct has signed up just 30 customers, mostly corporations, Internet cafes and a hotel. Indeed, technical tryouts have indicated that download speeds are much slower than 256K, and signals can be disrupted by heavy rainstorms.