Submitted via IRC for Bytram
OneWeb’s low-Earth satellites hit 400Mbps and 32ms latency in new test
OneWeb says a test of its low-Earth orbit satellites has delivered broadband speeds of more than 400Mbps with average latency of 32ms.
"The tests, which took place in Seoul, South Korea, represent the most significant demonstration of the OneWeb constellation to date, proving its ability to provide superior broadband connectivity anywhere on the planet," OneWeb said in an announcement yesterday.
The company said it's on track toward creating "a fully functioning global constellation in 2021 and delivering partial service beginning as early as 2020." The test described yesterday involved six OneWeb satellites that were launched in February. OneWeb says its commercial network "will start with an initial 650 satellites and grow up to 1,980 satellites."
While the 32ms latency figure is an average, the 400Mbps result seems to be the peak speed delivered during the test. OneWeb said its test also demonstrated "seamless beam and satellite handovers; accurate antenna pointing and tracking; [and] live-streamed video at resolutions up to 1080p."
OneWeb originally promised service in Alaska "as early as 2019," but by February 2019 the company said it would only be able to provide customer demos by 2020.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday July 18 2019, @07:32AM (1 child)
I can't speak for this constellation, but usually the advertised bandwidth is per square meter of coverage area. As the other poster says, that cuts both ways: if you want the data to go to the Internet, you need to have large dishes on the ground at the other ends and that quickly becomes your bottleneck.
That said, the target market for this kind of thing is usually not densely populated areas, it's houses in the middle of nowhere that don't have any other alternatives. Even if they can deliver 10% of this bandwidth and the same latency to rural customers, that makes the competitive with consumer offerings in densely populated areas.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @02:19PM
Hell, I live in a major metro area and I can barely get a tenth of that bandwidth and that latency from the existing DSL/Cable providers...