The news was confirmed today ahead of OneWeb's scheduled customer trials with Speedcast. These are due to commence mid-year with LEO service for Speedcast’s energy and enterprise customers, followed by maritime mobility services in 2023.
Neil Masterson, CEO at OneWeb, said: “This agreement will enable Speedcast to expand its expertise in integrated connectivity services for the maritime, energy and enterprise industries with OneWeb’s LEO satellite innovations. Speedcast and OneWeb are looking forward to the results of forthcoming trials this year, where we’ll demonstrate real progress on our maritime mobility and land enterprise offerings.”
Speedcast’s UGP monitors and automatically selects the right network path based on changes in operating environment, switching among satellites and between space and terrestrial routes to enable any device to choose the right communications path and connect sites and sensors to headquarters, cloud networks and other remote operations. Together with OneWeb services, Speedcast’s global platform will ensure customers in the maritime, energy and enterprise industries benefit from a multi-path, multi-orbit future that includes new LEO connectivity options.
The new LEO pathway follows on from the earlier additions of GEO, MEO and 4G/5G for high-demand applications.
“Thoroughly testing and evaluating new technologies is at the forefront of how we innovate and deliver advanced solutions for our customers,” said Joe Spytek, Chief Executive Officer at Speedcast. “Our collaboration with OneWeb speaks to both organizations’ alignment in meeting customers’ needs for comprehensive solutions enabling the highest levels of performance. LEO will be an important component in our Speedcast portfolio of managed communications paths, from GEO and MEO to 4G and 5G terrestrial wireless.”
Speedcast and OneWeb already partner on live service demonstrations, and this latest collaboration will extend further in the coming months as Speedcast plans to participate in trials relating to the constellation’s antenna tracking, handovers and related ground equipment.
Speedcast has also recently been commissioned to develop critical ground infrastructure for OneWeb to support the fleet operator’s Earth Station requirements in parts of Latin America. And in January, the enterprise satellite specialist confirmed that it had provided equipment to restore services to Tonga and its islands after a volcanic eruption broke the country's only subsea cable.
