Orange, a multi-service telecommunications operator present in 18 countries in Africa, will be the first operator to adopt the O3b mPOWER from SES, a next-generation medium earth orbit (MEO) satellite communications system, starting in the Central African Republic.
O3b mPOWER, says SES, a communications satellite owner and operator, is the world’s only fully funded non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) broadband system in development today. Positioned at 8,000 kilometres away from earth, the system will power low-latency high-throughput solutions that can be seamlessly integrated into existing terrestrial networks. When operational in 2022, O3b mPOWER will provide multiple terabits of throughput globally.
The O3b mPOWER constellation comprises ultra-high-capacity, low-latency, high-power MEO satellites, each with up to 5,000 fully shapeable and steerable beams that can be shifted and scaled in real time to meet customers’ demands. SES says that the system is ideally suited for domestic cellular backhaul and simultaneous international IP trunking applications.
Orange has been a customer and early adopter of SES’s current generation O3b MEO managed services since 2017. Orange is a strategic partner for SES with satellite gateways in several countries in the MEA region. With O3b mPOWER, Orange will substantially increase its low-latency MEO-enabled capabilities to support the growth of its bandwidth demand. The system will enable Orange to offer high broadband and seamless connectivity, while extending geographical reach.
In addition, Orange Central African Republic will leverage the world’s only multi-orbit network, utilising SES’s MEO and GEO (geostationary earth orbit) satellites to connect and aggregate 2G/3G traffic from remote base stations around the country to the core network in the capital of Bangui. This gives the operator a single source for cellular backhaul and core IP transit, as well as a consistent and seamless experience between the MEO and GEO services.
