Connectivity Technology Blog

OneWeb is hoping to start providing service this year. Their launches seem to be on schedule with another 34 satellites planned to be launched soon. In a press release back in September they stated : OneWeb, whose goal is to connect everyone everywhere, today announced the details of its Arctic high-speed, low-latency internet service. OneWeb will deliver 375 Gbps of capacity above the 60th parallel North. With service starting in 2020, there will be enough capacity to give fiber-like connectivity to hundreds of thousands of homes, planes, and boats, connecting millions across the Arctic. The dense, flexible coverage of OneWeb’s polar-orbiting satellites coupled with its high-speed service and low latency capabilities will provide a superior connectivity experience to the 48% of the Arctic currently without broadband coverage. In fact, OneWeb most recently proved its system’s capabilities through HD video streaming tests last month with its first six satellites that showcased e...

Original images on HAPSMobile Website . Earlier this month, Alphabet’s Loon LLC (“Loon”) and SoftBank Corp.’s HAPSMobile Inc. (“HAPSMobile”) announced they successfully developed a communications payload for HAPSMobile’s HAWK30, a solar-powered unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that flies in the stratosphere. The press release states: The initiative to design and develop the communications payload for the HAWK30 follows an announcement last April between Loon and HAPSMobile where the companies formed a strategic relationship. The partnership grew out of a joint recognition of the untapped potential of the stratosphere to enhance the connectivity ecosystem and bring more people, places, and things online. Since the April 2019 announcement, technical teams from Loon and HAPSMobile worked together to adapt the payload technology already used on Loon’s stratospheric balloons for the HAWK30. The effort leveraged Loon’s expertise in building communications payloads that are capable o...

NGMN published a whitepaper quietly, like all of their other publications, on the topic of affordable Voice and Data Services for sparsely populated areas, such as Sub-Sahara Africa, but also for higher ARPU markets with wide rural areas, such as North Canada. In many countries there is an obligation on operators providing a minimum level of coverage geographically, rather than population based only. Along with the stick, operators are looking for a carrot to justify their spend on bringing rural connectivity. The following is an extract from the paper available here [PDF]: The purpose of the NGMN’s Extreme Long Range Communications for Deep Rural Coverage program is to explore the challenge of addressing rural markets and to create industry momentum around long range communications solutions that are suitable for offering Internet access to rural populations who are underserved today. A number of options exists for operators to provide coverage; these are: i. Extending th...