The Stellar Teleport, located in a high-technology park in the suburbs of Cologne, Germany, was merely an idea at the beginning of 2001. However, through the entrepreneurial initiative of its founder and current CEO, Christian Steffen, the idea came to life later that year. In a nation where the incumbent telecom carrier has for long dominated the business, the Stellar Teleport was built from scratch, without external investment, and funded by revenues and customers. In its early days it delivered programming from a Russian TV network to clients in the United States. Today, the teleport features a Hotbird platform for leading Russian and Asian content. In addition to its connection to a London playout center via fiber, Stellar delivers 40 Mbps of programming to the United States via redundant co-location spots in Manhattan, including the award-winning 111 Eighth Avenue. The company developed its own subscriber management system, which allows several customers to share and bill for their programming on one platform using a variety of conditional access systems.