Communication Service Providers (CSPs) can’t reach all their potential customers via existing terrestrial and subsea networks, particularly in rural or low-density urban areas. At the same time, direct-to-handset satellite connectivity isn’t yet a one size fits all solution for the kind of coverage and performance that telcos currently offer.
So, getting the two to work efficiently together is an integral part of expanding connectivity and boosting performance for as many users around the world as possible.
This explains why more and more CSPs and satellite firms are teaming up - whether it’s to expand rural coverage, offer IoT and edge connectivity to more businesses, connect remote industrial locations, or bring faster connectivity to the high seas.
At this early stage, there is a wide range of different models for collaboration between satellite firms and CSPs, each offering different advantages and benefits to end users. Here are seven telco-satellite partnerships announced recently and why they make sense.
Telstra and OneWeb – 100,000 sq km more rural coverage
Telstra and OneWeb’s collaboration isn’t new, but this year has seen a significant expansion in the tie-up between the companies. After successful testing in Australia, Telstra will move many of its remote mobile base stations to OneWeb’s LEO network, as well as using the services for its future rollouts where satellite connectivity makes sense.
Australia’s widely dispersed population makes satellite backhaul a logical solution, and this rollout will expand both capacity and coverage. Telstra’s mobile customers in remote locations will receive as high as 25Gbs of connectivity via the partnership, while the broader coverage of OneWeb’s constellation will bring a further 100,000 sq km of Australia into mobile range in the next two years.
Announcing the partnership, Telstra’s group executive, global networks and technology Nikos Katinakis spoke about the company’s plans to extend this programme to cover additional use cases.
These include backup to fixed backhaul for critical sites, IoT and connectivity on the move for Australia’s vital mining industry and emergency services, as well as voice and fixed broadband services to regional areas of the country.
DT and Skylo/Intelsat – satellite-as-a-service
Of the various use cases for integrating satellite connectivity, Deutsche Telekom looks to be focusing on IoT – the carrier has announced partnerships with satellite companies Intelsat and Skylo in the past year to bolster its offering in this area and close gaps in its coverage.
Intelsat’s FlexEnterprise is a satellite-as-a-service offering that blends terrestrial and satellite to give a single offering to businesses, and Deutsche Telekom announced earlier in 2023 that it intends to integrate this service into its cloud-based IoT offering.
Meanwhile, the integration of Skylo’s solutions into the DT network of networks focuses on narrowband applications, allowing devices and modules to connect to Skylo’s satellite network, and therefore DT’s IoT network, with no additional hardware required.
Some initial use cases presented as part of these collaborations are wind turbine monitoring and connectivity, collection of data for weather stations and water levels, and broadband connectivity for oceangoing vessels.
Telefónica and Sateliot – bringing 5G roaming to space
Telefónica is another operator looking to satellite providers to expand IoT connectivity and performance. An agreement reached in July 2022 integrated satellite operator Sateliot’s LEO network into the Spanish telco’s existing terrestrial IoT setup – with the first-ever test of a 5G network in space following in July 2023 as a result.
The logic for the partnership is familiar - integrating satellite and terrestrial network equipment and software more smoothly and extending existing IoT capability to the kind of locations and industries that satellite is currently the best fit for, including agriculture, shipping and wind farms.
As a result of the partnership, the successful July 2023 end-to-end test extended cellular network coverage through satellites using a standard roaming connection – with the result that a device with a regular SIM card was able to switch from one to the other in a seamless fashion.
Etisalat and Eutelsat – programmable satellite coverage
Eutelsat’s Quantum, a software-defined satellite that entered service in August 2022, now counts some of Etisalat’s business and industrial connectivity capacity among its workload.
The two companies agreed in March 2023 to use Eutelsat’s network to extend the UAE operator’s 5G coverage to areas currently unreachable by terrestrial connectivity.
Launched in July 2021, the Quantum satellite was developed in partnership with the European Space Agency and Airbus Defence and Space. It is one of few examples of a reconfigurable satellite, which allows its users to modify performance, power and coverage via software configuration on the ground.
NTT and SES – MEO for private 5G
Next on the partnership list is NTT and SES – this time focusing on edge and private 5G. The two firms signed a multi-year partnership in April 2023 to offer Edge as a Service, which is aimed at companies operating in hard-to-reach areas and acts as an expansion of NTT’s existing private 5G offering.
NTT has chosen MEO rather than LEO to expand its coverage, selecting the 03b mPOWER MEO system operated by SES and combing it into an end-to-end service.
NTT’s partnership with SES is another example of the main rationale currently driving satellite-CSP partnerships– plugging coverage gaps, expanding services to areas where they weren’t before, and using multiple technologies to ensure coverage that’s as ubiquitous as possible.
This also fits the enterprise market nicely, particularly companies with distributed operations that have historically had a hard time securing reliable, reasonably priced connectivity for more remote sites.
Lynk and Vodafone Ghana – direct satellite-to-phone coverage for rural areas
Many of the satellite-telco partnerships have been for the benefit of industrial customers, but satellite connectivity brings benefits for voice and mobile coverage too.
An example of this is in Ghana, where Lynk and Telecel Group have expanded their collaboration in May 2023 to deliver mobile coverage to the entirety of the Ghanaian population across the Vodafone Ghana network, via the ‘cell towers in space’ concept.
The main benefit of this offering is rural connectivity that many people can take advantage of without the need for new devices – Lynk’s system allows users with standard mobile phones to connect via satellite coverage, greatly expanding connectivity in the country’s rural areas.
The network expansion also provides another backup for service resilience and even offers stand-in services for terrestrial towers in the country.
OneWEB and NOW Corp, Philippines
As well as industrial connectivity, one of the most frequent use cases put forward for satellite integration into CSP networks is the reach it offers to widely distributed coverage areas – particularly islands where terrestrial and even subsea coverage is challenging.
With 7,600 islands over 300,000 sq km, the Philippines is an ideal place to implement this, and in May 2023 OneWeb and Filipino company NOW Corporation signed an MOA in May 2023 to expand broadband connectivity across the country via OneWeb’s LEO network.
The service is primarily aimed at critical infrastructure like banks, schools and government, as well as the country’s mining and energy industries that are often located in hard-to-reach areas of the country.
Elsewhere, Intelsat and the Indonesian operator Lintararta recently rolled out a similar network across central and western Indonesia via satellite and cellular backhaul, the first time many of the areas covered have received any kind of telecommunications connectivity at all.
Want to learn more about how CSPs and satellite operators are working together? The Capacity Europe 2023 (17 – 19 October, London) agenda includes a stage dedicated to all things satellite – see some of the talking points here.
