Utilising satellite technology to improve access to the internet for Irish schools

SchoolSat was an initiative to utilise advances in satellite technology to improve access to the internet for Irish schools. Partially funded by the European Space Agency under the ARTES 3 Multimedia Programme the project ran from December 2001 until January 2003. The purpose of SchoolSat was to set up, manage and evaluate a pre-operational satellite-based service for compulsory schools in Ireland. It had as a clear objective and expected outcome: the establishment of a business and deployment plan for a fully operational and sustainable service for the Irish compulsory school sector based on a strategic mix of unicast and multicast services. Digital content from a variety of sources, including data and video, was brought together into a managed content repository. Selections from this asset base was multicast on a scheduled and ad hoc basis to caching servers at the pilot sites for desktop viewing and manipulation.