Ground comms, LEO and space stations are ready for take off
Low earth orbit satellite broadband service OneWeb is covering its bases by commissioning SpaceX, Eutelsat and Telstra in three different types of partnership.
In a new distribution agreement with ‘sister’ satellite operator Eutelsat the two firms will jointly develop geo-stationary and low earth orbit (GEO and LEO respectively) connection services. The partnership is cemented by the fact that as of December 2021 Eutelsat is OneWeb’s second-largest shareholder and the Eutelsat CEO will be on the phone, ‘showcasing synergies’, to the OneWeb operator if there’s any downtime.
“As a shareholder in OneWeb, we are excited [to fold] OneWeb’s connectivity services into our portfolio of solutions,” said Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke. Eutelsat could use the low orbit to complement its geostationary options for networking the fastest growing markets. The main demand is coming from aero and maritime mobility, fixed data and government services. The most crucial being European mobile operators needing backhaul options and they build 5G networks and telco clouds.
In the second partnership, Australian telco Telstra is to build three dedicated teleports across Australia to provide satellite gateway services for OneWeb in the Southern Hemisphere, as part of a ten-year deal between the two firms. In a report, Telecoms.com defines these as ‘ground based comms’.
Construction of the first teleport, in Darwin Tivendale, begins in March and the installation is due to be live in July. Two additional sites in Charlton Toowoomba and Wangara, Perth, are mooted for late 2022. Each facility will provide instant ground station support for OneWeb’s fleet.
OneWeb’s brief was exacting said Vish Vishwanathan, Telstra America’s VP for wholesale and satellite. However the close partnership forged on construction will stand them in good stead for future installations. “Teleports are complex sites involving access to secure and resilient infrastructure and on-the-ground expertise,” said Vishwanathan.
On Monday March 21 OneWeb clinched an agreement to launch satellites into space again by using SpaceX rockets rather than the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a spaceport located in Khazakstan and leased to Russia. Baikonur was dropped after Khazakstan supported the invasion of Ukraine.