Satellite providers and terrestrial telecom companies, it seems, have always been at odds. But that may be changing. As Congress and the FCC have pushed for companies to provide broadband internet to remote rural areas, satellites have become smaller, cheaper and certainly more plentiful. There may soon come a day when every fiber provider will be allied with a low earth orbit (LEO) constellation of satellites.
A step in that direction, AT&T has signed an agreement with OneWeb, the LEO satellite communications company. The carrier plans to use the LEO satellites to serve areas that its existing fiber networks can’t reach with the high-speed, low-latency broadband essential to business operations.
“I think that there are opportunities for the terrestrial and satellite industries to continue to coordinate their services,” said Thomas Stroup, President, Satellite Industry Association. “Satellites provide one of the most cost-effective means of being able to provide service to hard to reach areas. It is just so incredibly expensive to put in all of the infrastructure necessary to provide coverage to remote parts of the earth that don’t have coverage.”
The AT&T announcement follows OneWeb’s agreement in August with Northwestel, northern Canada’s largest telecommunications provider, to expand remote mining, enterprise business and government broadband options in northern Canada.
Although geostationary satellites have provided backhaul, this is the first agreement for a LEO satellite to provide coverage, Stroup said.
OneWeb-owner Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal said OneWeb plans to sign agreements with at least one telco in each of the 135 markets globally, ET Telecom.com reported.
The AT&T service will be supported by OneWeb’s network of satellites, which currently comprises 288 satellites. Global coverage with a total fleet of 648 satellites is expected by the end of 2022. AT&T business and government customers in Alaska and northern U.S. states will be covered later this year.
OneWeb competitors, SpaceX’s Starlink (42,000 satellites planned), Amazon’s Kuiper (3,236 satellites planned), and Telesat’s Lightspeed (298 satellites planned), are likely to hook up with a telco.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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