OneWeb and Huges join hands to offer satellite broadband services across India

OneWeb and Huges have joined hands to provide Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband service across India. Both the companies have announced a six-year Distribution Partner agreement for the same. The joint venture between the two companies follows the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the companies in September 2021.

There are chances that satellite broadband may not make a lot of noise as the service is quite expensive if one looks at the global services. People in India are able to access the internet at an affordable price, so users might not spend extra on satellite service.

OneWeb is a low Earth orbit satellite communications company and will play a major role in connecting towns, villages, and local and regional municipalities in those hardest-to-reach areas, playing a critical role in bridging the digital divide.

Hughes Communications India Private Limited (HCIPL) is well-positioned to deliver services to enterprises and governments with OneWeb capacity, especially in areas outside the reach of fiber connectivity.

Hughes is a longstanding and supportive shareholder of OneWeb through its parent company EchoStar. It is also an ecosystem partner to OneWeb, developing gateway electronics, including for those in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu and the core module that will power every user terminal for the system.

Furthermore, Hughes is also the prime contractor on an agreement with the U.S. Air Force Research Lab to integrate and demonstrate managed LEO SATCOM using OneWeb capacity in the Arctic region.

In each of its core markets, OneWeb works with selected distribution partners. OneWeb recently launched a new satellite that brought its total in-orbit satellites to 394, over 60 per cent of the planned 648 LEO satellite fleet. The company says that it has plans to commence global service by the end of 2022 as demand continues from telecommunications providers, aviation and maritime markets, ISPs, and governments worldwide for its low-latency, high-speed connectivity services.

Satellite broadband internet will come, but it won’t make a lot of noise for an average urban city consumer who has access to the internet at a very affordable cost. Even people living in the rural areas will accept less data with their internet plan overpaying an exorbitant cost for satellite broadband.