There’s a race going on right now to blanket the globe with high-speed Internet access. One of the horses in that race is OneWeb. Their first satellites are already in low Earth orbit and initial testing looks very promising.
Ars Technica reports that OneWeb’s initial trials hit a top speed of 400Mbps. Average latency hovered around 32ms, and streaming 1080p video was no problem at all.
This round of testing involved half dozen satellites that have been orbiting at a height of 1200km since earlier this year. By the time OneWeb goes live next year the company plans to have 650. When the ‘web’ is complete, that number will grow to 1,980.
? A test took place on the evening of – 07/11 in Seoul
? Our satellites delivered real-time full HD streaming from Space
? Extremely low latency
?️ Speed rates of over 400 Mbps
? And we streamed @acdc on YouTube from Space
? pic.twitter.com/qewgfBLpuk— OneWeb (@OneWeb) July 16, 2019
The project is actually a little behind schedule. OneWeb first received FCC approval two summers ago and had hoped to launch its first satellites in 2018 and start offering service in Alaska this year. Now the company expects to start offering consumer demos next year before fully switching on the service in 2021.
The heat is on now, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX is getting ready to launch its competing Starlink service. SpaceX recently received approval for its revised plan to launch 1,500 satellites. Starlink’s satellites will float even lower — around 342 miles — which could push latency all the way down to 15ms.
As a network administrator who looks after several very remote locations, I’m pretty excited by these early tests. Some of my sites can’t push much more than 10Mbps with current satellite providers. OneWeb also looks like it can easily beat the LTE-based terrestrial wireless connections that service some of my other users.
These next-gen satellite services will bring true high-speed Internet access to remote areas — not just in the U.S., but all over the world. Now all we need to know is how much providers are going to charge for that access.
