First in Belgium to free up expensive landlines and deliver more comprehensive newsfeed to its customers

INnet to receive Internet News via 2 MBit/s satellite link

Antwerp, February 6, 1997. - As of today, INnet, the market leading Internet Service Provider in Belgium, provides comprehensive and up-to-the-minute Internet news to its users via a 2 Mbit/s satellite newsfeed. USENET news traffic is already at a massive 4Gbytes daily and continues to grow rapidly. INnet wants to provide a full service for its customers, and this was taking up considerable bandwith on the expensive terrestrial links.

The 2Mbit/s connection does not only free up fixed terrestrial links but provides plenty of room for expansion and the provision of other services. "This is sufficient bandwidth for INnet to receive the news almost real time - as soon as it hits the servers of UUNET, our US mother company," Stephan Biesbroeck, head of Operations explained. "Multicast is being used to increase the throughput by removing the TCP overhead. We believe that this technology is better suited to large-scale broadcast services such as USENET news."

The service offers full retro error correction to ensure data integrity and includes built-in security and encryption. It is based on open standards. INnet will also offer this service to local service providers in Belgium.