L’communication industry has undergone revolutionary and unprecedented changes during this decade. Huge volumes of data can be transferred in a fraction of a second, allowing millions of devices to be synchronized in real time, while the entire planet can be covered without the need for cables or wires. A subscription to Internet by satellite represents a serious alternative for all the private individuals dissatisfied with their terrestrial connection.
The launch of 5G networks by some countries has sparked a race among major global companies, which are jostling to offer satellite internet services, using satellites in low Earth orbit to transfer ultra-high-speed data to users.
How it works ?
Satellite Internet technology can turn out to be an excellent alternative for those who have forgotten regarding 3G/4G, ADSL and fiber optics. Households, located in white areas, sometimes only have this solution in order to access a good Internet speed. Starlink alone now claims 700,000 customers worldwide and 700,000 others on the waiting list. To set up this system, three main elements are necessary: a transmission/reception station, a geostationary satellite and a satellite dish installed at the subscriber’s premises.
Each time you browse the Internet, your dish will send the data of your request to the satellite, located at an altitude of 36,000 km, which in turn will send it back to a transmitting / receiving station belonging to the operator to which you have subscribed and which is connected to the Internet. Once the page has been retrieved, the station sends the data back to the satellite, up to your dish, allowing you to display the desired page. That is a journey of around 140,000 km!
The new supplier bet
The European Union last Thursday kicked off Iris, a constellation of satellites intended to secure the Internet and its communications “everywhere” on its territory from 2027. The cost of the project has been estimated at 6 billion euros and an agreement was reached following nine months of negotiations between the European Parliament and the Member States on the allocation. This is made up of 2.4 billion euros from the EU budget, to which must be added 750 million euros from the European Space Agency.
Starlink topped the fixed broadband average in 16 European countries, according to Ookla speed test data from the second quarter of 2022. Its median download speed topped 90 Mbps, before dropping to 62 Mbps, while Viasat was in second place with a download speed of 23 Mbps. HughesNet was just behind Viasat at a download speed of 22.62 Mbps. Also worth mentioning is the new breakthrough of Amazon’s Project Kuiper. Although a far cry from the stage Starlink has reached so far, Project Kuiper is turning heads when its prototype delivered speeds of up to 400 Mbps in recent iterations. Being closer to Earth requires sending many more spacecraft into orbit: more than 3,200 for Amazon, and thousands for Starlink, of which around 1,500 are already active.
Britain’s OneWeb has launched 428 of the 648 satellites in its LEO constellation, and China plans to deploy around 13,000 “GuoWang” satellites. In Morocco, incumbent telecom operators are working to conquer this new market valued at 2.93 billion dollars in 2020, and which should reach 18.59 billion dollars by 2030. Maroc Telecom and Inwi launched in 2017 their satellite connectivity solution (VSAT). Other providers in the area are also trying to follow the trend. At the last census, some 100,000 subscribers subscribed to this solution, according to C2M System. However, current offers do not exceed 30 Mb/s, the theoretical maximum.
