Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) and OneWeb have announced that Hughes has become a worldwide distribution partner for OneWeb.
OneWeb’s constellation of LEO satellites will expand Hughes service offerings and ensure that the company’s customers can access low-latency, high-speed connectivity, wherever they are located. Applications will include enterprise and government networking, cellular backhaul and community Wi-Fi hotspots.
The new agreement expands an already successful relationship between the two companies. Hughes is an investor, through its parent company EchoStar, and an ecosystem partner to OneWeb, helping to develop essential ground network technology for OneWeb’s LEO system.
OneWeb works with carefully selected distribution partners in each of its core markets, providing new business and expansion opportunities through the low latency, global, high throughput attributes of OneWeb’s network.
OneWeb is building its initial constellation of 650 LEO satellites. By late 2021, OneWeb will be offering low latency globally, with the same capacity over the water, in the air, in previously unconnectable places and everywhere else.
Service testing on the satellites already on-orbit is underway, using gateways that Hughes is building for the network. Results are positive, including seamless satellite and beam handovers, high speeds and low latency.
The gateways feature multiple tracking antennas to support operation and handoff of high-speed user traffic to and from the LEO satellites, and can handle up to 10,000 terminal hand-offs per second – a technological and engineering breakthrough. Every OneWeb terminal, whether for fixed or mobile services, will incorporate a core module, including modem, developed and manufactured by Hughes.
Pradman Kaul, President, Hughes, said a new era of global connectivity demand is being entered, one that can only be fulfilled by a mix of data transport services, including terrestrial, geostationary and LEO satellites. OneWeb complements the company’s service portfolio with a truly global coverage, low-latency option that will enable the customers to meet their end users’ needs for connectivity everywhere.”
Adrian Steckel, CEO, OneWeb, related that connectivity is only truly valuable when it delivers the user experience that customers need, and in today’s fast-moving digital economy, businesses and civil government organizations need high quality, continuous internet access wherever they are located. The company is delighted that Hughes is joining OneWeb on the firm’s mission to deliver this vision. Hughes is already an important investor and an invaluable technology partner.
Hughes is exhibiting at SATELLITE 2020, March 10-13, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., and is showcasing how consumers, businesses, governments and communities around the world benefit from the connected experiences enabled by Hughes technologies and services. Please visit www.hughes.com/sat20