Rural and remote parts of both Latin America and Europe are set to benefit from a deal involving low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications company OneWeb and global telecommunications company Telefonica.
OneWeb and Telefonica, through its subsidiary Telefonica Global Solutions (TGS), which manages its international wholesale, global roaming, multinationals and USA businesses, have signed a memorandum of understanding to improve connectivity services across Europe and Latin America.
OneWeb’s LEO satellite service will complement Telefonica's existing offering in Europe and Latin America, enabling it to reach remote regions that it has not previously been able to serve.
TGS says it offers an ecosystem of comprehensive satellite solutions for different applications and industries and that it will offer its expertise to promote and supply OneWeb’s low-latency cellular backhaul services. These can be deployed to help improve existing backhaul and support network upgrades to 4G/5G. They can also provide backhaul backup for critical sites and infill capacity for special events.
Where backhaul does not currently exist, OneWeb’s service will help expand Telefonica’s mobile coverage and extend enterprise connectivity.
The partnership will not only support the expansion of mobile connectivity to users globally, according to the partners, but enable new applications and OTT services. SMEs will be able to use the OneWeb/TGS LEO satellite solution to support and extend their enterprise networks, while large organisations – including governments, telcos and ISPs – in rural and remote parts of Europe and Latin America will also benefit from the combination of Telefonica’s fibre network and OneWeb’s low-latency broadband service.
It is not yet clear which specific countries in the two regions will benefit.
