AT&T became the latest operator to look to the sky to prolong the get to of its broadband network, teaming with OneWeb to serve organization and governing administration buyers in distant destinations outside of its fiber footprint.
John Wojewoda, AT&T AVP, told Fierce that whilst it is nonetheless early days, OneWeb’s company is anticipated to provide speeds of practically 200 Mbps. In addition to serving up broadband for company and governing administration consumers in challenging-to-attain places, he mentioned AT&T can also use this connectivity for cell internet site backhaul the place direct fiber is not available. It can also potentially be utilised for disaster recovery remedies, he included.
The govt stated AT&T could also examine the use of OneWeb’s company to give residential broadband in long run, but is not pursuing that selection at this time.
AT&T observed in a press release that though far more than 9 million organization client locations are inside of 1,000 feet of its fiber community, there are however a good deal of distant parts that remain outside of its arrive at.
Asked about why it determined to lover with OneWeb, Wojewoda stated AT&T explored a assortment of choices but landed on OneWeb as the organization with the “business design that manufactured sense to get the job done with AT&T.” He added “this is a tool in the toolbox…this doesn’t automatically entirely displace other options, it can be employed to complement them.”
“We are out there serving shoppers with numerous connectivity necessities. And being capable to supply that connectivity everywhere that they are, it is significant to AT&T’s worth that we’re offering them. So this will offer far more versatility to provide all those substantial consumer demands in locations that are either very complicated or expernsive to provide nowadays,” Wojewoda said.
Connected: OneWeb aims to capitalize on telco, governing administration connections
OneWeb’s in-orbit constellation tallied 288 satellites as of August. It expects to start off delivering connectivity above the 50th parallel by the conclude of this yr and options to grow its constellation to 648 satellites by the finish of 2022.
In latest months the satellite operator teamed with U.K. operator BT and Canadian participant Northwestel to check out rural broadband use situations and inked distribution partnerships with Alaska Communications, Pacific Dataport and ROCK Communications.
Last thirty day period, OneWeb secured a $300 million investment decision from South Korea’s Hanwha Methods, elevating its complete funding to $2.7 billion – more than enough to finish its prepared community.