The UK-based company, which is in the process of merging with Eutelsat in France, says it will be able to reach everywhere with its eventual 648 satellites.
Allan Lynge (pictured), wholesale manager at Tusass, said that Greenland experiences considerable issues in connecting people. “The main challenges are weather, long distances, and small settlements with not that many people.”
OneWeb said it is “passionate about closing the digital divide and connecting the unconnected”.
The only alternative in some parts of Greenland is 5G broadband, offering 80Mbps down and 20Mbps up, but that’s expensive, at 1,099 Danish kroner a month, equivalent to almost €150.
Tusass, with a staff of 460 to serve the 56,000 population of Greenland, spread out across more than 2 million sq km, provides postal and parcel services as well as fixed, mobile and internet communications. It also manages the Greenland Connect subsea cable, which runs along part of the west coast.
“With a satellite constellation we can reach everywhere,” said the company. OneWeb says it can deliver up to 195Mbps down and up to 32Mbps up to Greenland customers.
Conventional geostationary (GEO) satellites do not work because “they are in the shadow of the curvature of the earth”, said Lynge.
OneWeb suspended its launches at the end of February 2022, because it could no longer use Russian rockets after Russia invaded Ukraine. NewSpace India put up 36 more in October, taking the total to 462 in service.
SpaceX is expected to launch 48 more from Florida in December on a Falcon 9 with two more launches of 48 each in 2023. A further NewSpace India launch is due in 2023.
