BT Group and low-earth orbit satellite venture OneWeb are taking an earlier agreement to new heights. The partners signed a deal for connectivity services and expect to fire up the first live trials early next year.
The global distribution partner agreement announced Tuesday encompasses BT’s enterprise, consumer and global business units across its footprint. It builds on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) the partners reached in July.
Both companies are headquartered in Britain and BT plans to start with lab tests in its Bristol facility to show how LEO satellite services integrate with existing terrestrial capabilities. It aims for live trials to follow early in 2022, and BT said the deal marks a clear roadmap toward initial satellite services becoming available to customers within a year.
RELATED: Satellite majors SpaceX, Kuiper, OneWeb head to India to close digital divide
OneWeb is still building its LEO constellation and expects to reach global coverage by mid-2022 with 648 satellites. Coverage in the U.K. will come sooner, with plans to deliver services from the North Pole to the 50th Parallel – including coverage across the entire country – later this year.
In October the company launched 36 additional satellites, bringing its total in-orbit constellation to 358, more than half of its entire fleet.
With its current constellation and capacity, BT said early trials will focus on using OneWeb as a supplement for backhaul, providing low latency to sites where the operator needs additional capacity or for added resiliency as a backup solution.
Tapping satellites for IoT backhaul and for fixed wireless access to serve rural areas could also come into play once OneWeb increases its own capacity, according to BT.
“Space is an emerging and enormous digital opportunity, and this is an important step towards harnessing its potential for BT’s customers across the globe,” said Philip Jansen, chief executive of BT Group in a statement, adding that the operator will put OneWeb’s technology through its paces in the UK labs. “Delivered securely and at scale, satellite solutions will be an important part of our plans to expand connectivity throughout the UK and globally, and to further diversify the range of services we can offer our customers.”
BT is working on its own goal of a converged, software-defined network and said satellite services are a component of the vision to deliver “on demand” digital solutions anywhere in the U.K. by 2028.
That includes plans to offer 5G across the country via its mobile brand EE, with more than 90% geographical reach on that timeline. BT laid out its vision in July for combining mobile, Wi-Fi and fiber infrastructures for what it considers the first fully converged U.K. network. The new partner deal with OneWeb covers for U.K.-specific opportunities but also spans BT Group's global footprint.
RELATED: BT lays out ambitious 5G plans for EE in U.K.
The deal with BT supports not only the mobile and fixed wireline ambitions, but also the U.K. government’s National Space Strategy.
Britain-based OneWeb also is backed by the U.K. government, which invested in the company for an equity stake alongside India’s Bharti Global after the satellite venture sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2020. Japan’s SoftBank, Hughes Network Systems and South Korea’s Hanwha Systems also have invested in OneWeb.
U.K. Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng in a statement about the BT and OneWeb deal said: “I am thrilled to see the U.K. at the forefront of this emerging technology thanks to the Government’s investment in OneWeb – a crucial part of our plans to cement our status as a global science and technology superpower.”
OneWeb CEO Neil Masterson spoke at the Satellite 2021 LEO Digital Forum earlier this year, noting that the U.K. government’s backing would be critical in expanding the company’s footprint.
“Everyone understands that market access and regulations are absolutely critical to being successful in this industry,” he said in April, as OneWeb pursues enterprise, government, maritime and other markets in a B2B2C strategy.
RELATED: OneWeb aims to capitalize on telco, government connections
For the deal with BT, Masterson said in a statement that BT Group represents an important strategic partnership as Oneweb works toward operational launch.
“We are excited to be playing such a key role in improving the resilience of the overall telecom infrastructure in the UK. OneWeb’s connectivity platform will help bridge the last digital divides across the country and enhance the nation’s digital infrastructure,” Masterson stated.
In the U.S., operators are also looking at early partnerships with satellite broadband players. AT&T in September teamed up with OneWeb with the aim of reaching enterprise and government customers with high speed connections in remote locations outside of its fiber footprint. And Verizon just last week said it will partner with Amazon’s Project Kuiper, initially for cellular backhaul to reach underserved and unserved communities.