OneWeb expands commercial service across Europe, US | Computer Weekly

Hot on the heels of the global low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications company completing its first-generation constellation in the spring of 2023 and marking a significant step as the company progresses toward global services, the OneWeb low Earth orbit (LEO) communications network has announced the expansion of its connectivity services throughout Europe and the majority of the US reaching regions above the latitude of 35 degrees north.

The company has now just confirmed that its expansion first became active at the end of May, adding service to 37 new countries in Europe to OneWeb’s footprint, including Austria, Italy, France, and Portugal, as well as the entire western US coast from Washington to California, the northeast coast from Maine to Virginia, and across the Midwest. This expansion also further enhances connectivity across Canada and additional maritime regions as well. 

OneWeb’s network is already delivering connectivity at 50 degrees north, as part of its company’s Five to 50 mission, which supplies broadband connectivity from the North Pole to the 50th parallel, working with distribution partners to provide community broadband solutions, cellular backhaul, corporate enterprise service initially delivering connectivity across the UK, Canada, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland and the Arctic Region.

As a wholesale connectivity provider, OneWeb provides services via its partners, such as telecommunications companies and internet service providers that can integrate the OneWeb service into a suite of connectivity services ensuring the end customer is connected to a high-speed, resilient, low latency internet connection, regardless of their location. 

With this latest expansion launched, OneWeb’s partners are now expanding the regions in which they are offering services as well as enabling new OneWeb partners to switch on and integrate OneWeb’s LEO network into their solutions.

Use cases supported in the new expansion include education, healthcare, commerce, and economic development. OneWeb believes that with fast connection speeds and low latency making the service ideal for real-time communication applications such as video calling and enterprise-grade broadband transforming connectivity in areas where terrestrial services are not available.

OneWeb completed launching its global constellation in March 2023 and the business is working towards offering fully global service by the year end. OneWeb and its partners are continuing to add new ground stations and additional services across the world, as more of its 600-plus satellites reach their final position in the constellation. OneWeb expects to complete the full global roll-out of ground stations by the end of the year.

“This expansion is a significant step in our journey to delivering global commercial service for our customers. We are seeing increased demand for our service as we have expanded coverage and grown our portfolio of user terminals for different markets,” said OneWeb chief commercial officer Stephen Beynon.

“Our technical experience in all corners of the globe, as well as the strong relationships we have with existing partners in Alaska, Canada and Europe, means OneWeb is well placed to support customers in these new regions as well as welcoming new partners to activate services for the first time. As our network coverage continues to grow, I am incredibly excited to serve more maritime, government, enterprise and aviation customers than ever before.”