BBWN Bites: Inmarsat Blasts Arctic With Satellite Broadband
Also in today's news roundup: NBN reaches more than forecasted, Eutelsat's latest venture, 5G in rural Japan and Google's new subsea cable.
Inmarsat will dedicate two satellite payloads to serving penguins and polar bears, as well as government and commercial customers, in the Arctic region under a partnership with Space Norway and subsidiary Space Norway Heosat. Commercial customers include fleets and fishing vessels, airlines and energy companies, while government clients incorporate nations like the United States, Canada and Scandinavia.
Australian operator NBN boosted its number of 'ready-to-connect' premises by more than 1.1 million during the most recent quarter, increasing the total to 9.93 million by the close of its 2019 fiscal year, which ended June 27. That's more than NBN's FY19 forecast of 9.7 million. Look for more coverage on BBWN today.
Satellite operator Eutelsat Communications is investing €10 million ($11.3 million) in Broadpeak, a provider of content delivery systems via terrestrial and satellite networks. The investment part of Eutelsat's ongoing tactic of integrating satellite into the OTT world, which began in September 2018 when it launched (literally) a hybrid-satellite OTT solution for both satellite TV channels and operators.
Beaming Down on Content
Satellite provider Eutelsat Communications will pour €10 million ($11.3 million) into CDN vendor (and a 2019 Light Reading Leading Lights winner) Broadspeak.
KDDI and Softbank teamed up to bring 5G to rural Japan as part of the government's "Society 5.0" initiative. The partners intend to establish a joint construction-management company to simplify design and management both companies' base stations, thereby reducing construction time and allowing them to test network and both fixed and wireless broadband infrastructure quality in less population regions of the nation.
The Colombian Ministry of Telecommunications (Mintic) chose satellite provider SES Networks' partner Inred to deploy, maintain and operate 1,000 WiFi hotspots in 1,000 rural areas. Inred will use SES Networks' Signature Solutions, which taps the SES-14 satellite's combo of wide beams and high throughput (HTS) spot beams. The WiFi system is part of Connect Colombia, the Latin American country's "the digital future belongs to everyone" government program which aims to provide every Colombian with Internet access.
Connecting All Colombians
The Latin American country wants all Colombians, including those dwelling in rural regions, to have Internet access and is using multiple access technologies, including satellite.
Google's new subsea cable to link Europe and South Africa, Equiano, is being built by Alcatel Submarine Networks. Phase One is slated for completion in 2021. It will run from Lisbon to Lagos to Cape Town when constructed.
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— Alison Diana, Editor, Broadband World News. Follow us on Twitter or @alisoncdiana.
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Here's where you can find episode links for 'The Divide,' Light Reading's podcast series featuring conversations with broadband providers and policymakers working to close the digital divide.
As we have for the past two years, Light Reading will present our Cable Next-Gen Europe conference as a free digital symposium on June 21.
Charter has sparked RDOF work in all 24 states where it won bids. The cable op booked about $19 million in RDOF revenues in Q1, and expects to have about $9 million per month come in over the next ten years.
As we have for the past two years, Light Reading will stage the Cable Next-Gen Technologies & Strategies conference as a free digital event over two half-days in mid-March.
Launch of 2-Gig and 5-Gig FTTP tiers in 70-plus markets puts more pressure on cable ops to enhance their existing DOCSIS 3.1 network or accelerate their upgrade activity centered on the new DOCSIS 4.0 specs.
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