Olympus provided several beams including a pan-European beam for distribution over Europe and steerable spot beams which reached Canada, Africa and as far East as Ukraine. When Olympus came to the end of its life in 1993 the Space Agency rented a tranponder on a commercial Eutelsat satellite so that broadcasts could continue. The Space Agency is now working closely with the European commission to ensure that the valuable experience gained over the past five years is channelled into the Telematics applications programme which is about to begin. The most significant development for Education and Training is the use of satellites for point to multipoint distribution of live programmes. Many of these have been live presentations with feedback from viewers by telephone, electronic mail and more recently by ISDN videoconference.
Some activities are already commercially viable.
Eurotransmed, a service for medical specialists and doctors throughout Europe now has a regular series of programmes paid for by the viewers. Eurostep, a consortium of European Universities, Colleges and schools transmitted six hours a day of programmes first on Olympus and then on Eutelsat. The University of Plymouth has supported several projects. Three principle markets were targeted. Small business - very interactive using viewers experience stimulated by experts and small business traders from studio.