Kepler Communications and Cobham SATCOM have formed a strategic partnership for high-capacity satellite data service delivery.
Kepler Communications, a pioneer of nanosatellite telecommunications solutions, and Cobham SATCOM have announced a strategic partnership aimed at eliminating barriers to widespread adoption of high capacity data services over Kepler’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) network.
“Under the new arrangement, organisations evaluating Kepler’s ability to cost-effectively move multiple gigabytes of data per day around the globe can experience a fully managed trial of the service anywhere on the planet with no upfront CAPEX spend, no lengthy service commitment, and certified installation & support executed through Cobham SATCOM’s global Technical Service Partner network.”
Kepler and Cobham successfully deployed a field trial recently of two augmented Sea Tel antennas aboard the Polarstern research vessel (pictured). (Read the Press Release here).
Currently, the system is undergoing trials in the central Arctic well beyond the range of traditional geostationary satellites, and has demonstrated up to 40 Mbps downlink and 120 Mbps uplink.
According to a news release, offering ‘User Terminal-as-a-Service’ (UTaaS), the Kepler-Cobham partnership centers on three core principles: shifting equipment costs to a monthly operational fee from a more traditional one-time capital expense; embedding installation, technical support, terminal maintenance, warehousing, and transport services into the monthly fees with future capabilities for add-on services; and exchanging technical know-how to improve the delivery of LEO wideband services.
“Proven, reliable ground segment is a critical piece for delivering wideband services from LEO,” said Jeffrey Osborne, Co-founder and VP of Business Development at Kepler.
“The cost of today’s tracking antennas as well as the complexity of coordinating setup, installation and support are understandable roadblocks for those wishing to test drive our Global Data Service. At Kepler our goal is to deliver the most frictionless customer experience possible so that anyone with a potential use case for this groundbreaking capability can simply say ‘yes’ and keep their focus on the really important elements of their application. Our partnership with Cobham enables us to create exactly that experience where we can scalably execute demonstrations anywhere on the planet all for a manageable monthly OPEX fee that includes hardware, setup, support, and airtime,” said Osborne.
