Ecuador’s CNT to improve Galápagos connectivity with new satellite technology

Ecuadoran state telco CNT will deploy the O3b mPOWER satellite technology to improve connectivity on the Galápagos Islands. 

The information was confirmed by Steve Collar, CEO of satellite operator SES, at a press conference in response to a question from BNamericas. 

On Friday, SES announced that the first two O3b mPOWER satellites were successfully launched into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The initial constellation consists of 11 satellites. 

SES’s second-generation medium earth orbit system will deliver terabit-level scale and roundtrip latency of less than 150 milliseconds. 

CNT is a long-time customer and in 2015 the companies partnered to offer broadband internet to the Galápagos.

“The Galápagos is an incredible pristine area, and, environmentally, it’s not a good thing to be puling fibers and cables,” Collar said. 

The second generation of the O3b constellation will be able to distribute connectivity further into the islands. 

“Before [mPOWER technology] we had to pick individual towns and cities that we wanted to connect because we only had 10 beams per satellite. Now we’re completely unlimited in the number of locations,” said Collar. 

Every mPOWER satellite has 5,000 digitally formed beams.

Collar also said that the company is connecting parts of the Colombian Amazon. 

BRAZIL 

In October, SES and Claro signed a multi-year capacity renewal contract to enable the delivery of enhanced 4G/5G-ready services via O3b mPOWER in at least eight of the 23 cities the telco serves through SES’s multi-orbit satellite network. 

“We started to deploy services in a very modular way in the Amazon region of Brazil. [We were] not entirely sure how it would take off and we started with 10 megabits, then 50 megabits and 100 megabits. We’re now delivering almost six gigabits per second with Claro,” Collar said at the conference. 

The executive said the company is ready to “light up the whole of the Amazon towns and villages that are either uneconomic to connect or not possible to connect to this point in time.” “One of the big revolutions with mPOWER is that we can have effectively an unlimited number of local gateways,” he added.