The first satellite dedicated to delivering broadband services to Europe is all set for launch.
The Hylas spacecraft is designed to fill so-called "not spots" - remote locations such as rural villages where it is currently not possible to get a fast internet connection.
The satellite will be carried into orbit on an Ariane 5 rocket.
The vehicle is expected to lift off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 1539 local time (1839 GMT).
Hylas (Highly Adaptable Satellite) is a commercial venture operated by start-up Avanti Communications of London, but the spacecraft itself incorporates technology developed with public funding through the European Space Agency (Esa).
The satellite's payload will automatically vary the amounts of power and bandwidth needed to match peaks and troughs in demand for net access across its European "footprint".
Hylas was prepared at the Portsmouth, UK, factory of EADS Astrium, Europe's largest space company, and Antrix, a commercial arm of the Indian space agency (Isro).
The 2.6-tonne spacecraft will operate in the Ka radio band and deliver broadband services to some 350,000 subscribers.
The UK government put �40m into the Hylas development programme.
It has a commitment that everyone in Britain should have access to a decent net connection by 2015.�That means a minimum of two megabits per second (Mbps).
Some three million UK homes currently fall below this standard; and across Europe, there are many millions more who cannot currently get an adequate connection through terrestrial technology.
<!-- Embedding the audio player --> <!-- This is the embedded player component -->Hylas will be offering up to 10Mbps to its users.
"It is the first of what will be many satellites," explained Avanti CEO David Williams. "We've already got our second satellite under construction at the moment and that launches in about 15 months' time.
"That will put more capacity into the UK but also it puts new capacity into new areas in Africa and the Middle East. And then we are planning more satellites for Latin America, India and other parts of Asia."
In Europe, Avanti faces competition from the long-established Eutelsat space communications company, which is putting up its own net-dedicated Ka-band satellite for Europe, delivering 10Mbps through its Tooway service.
Eutelsat's KA-Sat is due for launch on a Russian Proton rocket on 20 December.
Astrium worked on both Hylas-1 and KA-Sat, and at one stage the two satellites were sitting inside the same Portsmouth cleanroom separated by a few metres.
Friday's Ariane will also be orbiting a telecommunications spacecraft for Intelsat. The US platform will deliver a wide range of services across Europe, the Middle East, Russia and Asia.
Intelsat-17 will be ejected by the Ariane upper-stage 27 minutes into the flight; Hylas will come out seven minutes later.
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