The objective of the TWISTER Integrated Project is to support the development and widespread adoption of satellite communication services to deliver broadband services for rural areas. TWISTER will provide innovative applications meeting the specific needs of various rural user communities such as local administrations, educational institutions, health care practitioners, SMEs and agricultural communities. Concrete applications such as data transfer and videoconferencing between islands in Malta or Greece, high data rate Internet access for villages in Spain or France, e-business development for SMEs in rural regions of Poland will be tested on various validation sites (a group of 35 sites initially and up to 105 ultimately), selected with the support of national and regional public authorities. User satisfaction (quality of service) will be evaluated to propose improvement and to specify a roadmap for further services deployment. The integration of space-based infrastructure with terrestrial systems, aims at achieving a seamless broadband coverage in rural areas. TWISTER will investigate a number of hybrid satellite-wireless architectures (with adaptations of security or billing schemes) and validate their on-site performances. To promote the use of satellite services, the project will foster the adoption of the DVB-RCS open standard. TWISTER will complement ESA and Satlabs group activities by validating the performance of low cost interoperable DVB-RCS terminals at end-to-end application level in a real operational environment. Being able to offer simultaneous services over large areas, the space-based infrastructures will favour the enlargement of the European Union. TWISTER will involve companies and user communities from the new entrants, current EU member states and countries associated with the FP6 programme. The TWISTER Consortium, involving all actors in the Telecom Value Chain, like User Communities, Service Provider, Satellite Operator or Equipment Manufacturers, under Astrium coordination, will create the necessary conditions to successfully deploy over European rural regions such satellite solutions as a complement to terrestrial means, for the benefit of the population and the economy.