OneWeb UK Confirms BT Talks – Possible Rural Broadband Fix

Satellite broadband operator OneWeb, which is partly owned by the UK government and aims to build a mega constellation of “high-speed” broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), has confirmed that they’re in early-stage talks with BT about the use of their network to help connect remote rural areas.

At present OneWeb has launched a total of 110 LEOs into space and the initial plan is to build a constellation of 648 satellites, which is enough for a reasonable level of global coverage by around the end of 2022. After that they have future approval for a total of 2,000 satellites and 1,280 of those will be a second-generation model that sits in a higher Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) of 8,500km, but that would require more investment.

In theory the new network could deliver ultrafast broadband speeds (100Mbps+) and latency times of under 40ms (example), although we still have no idea what sort of service will actually be made available to the domestic connectivity market and how much it might cost. Nevertheless, if recent tests by the rival Starlink (SpaceX) platform are anything to go by, OneWeb could offer a fix for poor broadband speeds in rural areas.

All of this has recently become particularly relevant given the on-going concerns around the 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO), which was originally touted as a fix to help connect some of the remotest areas. However, there are tens of thousands of premises in the final 1% of the UK where even this becomes far too expensive (here), with some install quotes even reaching beyond £1m+.

As such the Telegraph‘s (paywall) new article, which confirms that OneWeb are in early-stage talks with BT about the potential use of their constellation, is particularly relevant as the technology should be good enough to meet Ofcom’s technical criteria (e.g. latency times of under 200ms) for their USO.

A OneWeb Spokesperson added:

“We’re looking at being able to support telecom companies around the world.”

In our view there are three potential approaches that BT could take with this, if they were to proceed.

Possible BT OneWeb Broadband Solutions

— Satellite capacity for a 5G mobile or fixed wireless network.

— Satellite capacity to support a local fibre or hybrid fibre network.

— Direct to customer broadband solution (dish on house etc.).

At the time of writing, we haven’t seen any sign of a direct to consumer (Starlink style) broadband solution, although OneWeb has previously talked about serving “communities” (i.e. possibly a reference to using satellite capacity for a community distribution model, such as to feed a local fixed line or wireless network).

Lest we forget that BT has already helped to develop satellite technologies for use alongside 5G networks (here), which might plausibly be used to kill two birds with one stone (mobile and broadband connectivity) in remote rural areas. We suspect that the Government, which has already invested £400m ($500m) into OneWeb, would be keen to support some related trials. Time will tell.