{"id":18179,"date":"2019-01-16T18:55:06","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T10:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/astranis-and-pacific-dataport-team-up-on-satellite-broadband-access-for-alaska\/"},"modified":"2019-01-16T18:55:06","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T10:55:06","slug":"astranis-and-pacific-dataport-team-up-on-satellite-broadband-access-for-alaska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/astranis-and-pacific-dataport-team-up-on-satellite-broadband-access-for-alaska\/","title":{"rendered":"Astranis and Pacific Dataport team up on satellite broadband access for Alaska"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Astranis
An artist\u2019s conception shows Astranis\u2019 telecommunications microsatellites in orbit. (Astranis Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Astranis Space Technologies says it has struck a deal with Alaska\u2019s Pacific Dataport Inc. to provide America\u2019s northernmost state with three times as much satellite data bandwidth as it has today, via its first satellite in geostationary orbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a firm contract in the many tens of millions of dollars,\u201d Astranis co-founder and CEO John Gedmark told GeekWire in advance of today\u2019s announcement. It also arguably ranks as the biggest deal of its type for a satellite company as young as Astranis, which emerged from stealth mode less than a year ago.<\/p>\n

Astranis put a small-scale test satellite into low Earth orbit last year, and plans to follow up with the launch of a 660-pound (300-kilogram), 3-foot-wide telecommunications satellite in the second half of next year. Gedmark said the satellite would be sent up as a secondary payload by a major launch provider, but declined to say which one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to happen fast,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The satellite will fill a slot that\u2019s been set aside for Pacific Dataport more than 22,000 miles over Alaska. \u201cIt has a capacity of 7.5 gigabits per second, which is enough to more than triple the satellite capacity that is over Alaska right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Astranis
An Astranis engineer runs tests on the satellite\u2019s software-defined radio payload in the company\u2019s clean room in San Francisco\u2019s SoMa district. (Astranis Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gedmark and Ryan McLinko, Astranis\u2019 other co-founder and chief technology officer, created the company with the goal of bringing high-speed data access to more of the estimated 4 billion people around the world who are currently underserved when it comes to internet services.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not alone in that quest: SpaceX, OneWeb and Telesat are among the other companies seeking to bridge the broadband gap with satellite networks. Those companies, however, are planning to put hundreds or thousands of satellites into low Earth orbit, also known as LEO. In contrast, Astranis will rely on miniaturized satellites that can be placed one by one into geostationary Earth orbit, or GEO, to focus on specific geographical areas.<\/p>\n

The drawback to GEO vs. LEO has to do with the lag time, or latency, for transmitting signals back and forth. But Gedmark said GEO can still hold an important place in providing high-speed internet access to the billions who are off the beaten track for broadband.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they are underserved or have no connection at all, then they just want internet as fast as possible. \u2026 Really, 95 percent of what people do in today\u2019s world is not latency-sensitive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The California-based company\u2019s analysis of the satellite broadband market revealed surprising opportunities close to home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we found was that one of the most urgent needs is right here in the United States, and in rural areas,\u201d Gedmark said. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 35 percent of Americans \u2014 roughly 113 million people \u2014 say they don\u2019t use broadband at home.<\/p>\n

In Alaska, 39 percent of the state\u2019s population is underserved with broadband, according to figures from BroadbandNow. So from Astranis\u2019 perspective, it made sense to start with Alaska and with Pacific Dataport, a satellite communications company that\u2019s supported by Microcom and Space Partnership International.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really couldn\u2019t have asked for a better first customer and a better partner,\u201d Gedmark said.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=a5TNxEXhDVg<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s news release, Astranis and Pacific Dataport said the satellite broadband service will bring costs down to an average that\u2019s three times less than the current pricing for both residential and wholesale customers. Gedmark told GeekWire that the price tag would be \u201cless than $100 a month for true broadband access.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacific Dataport\u2019s deal is structured as a seven-year lease of broadband capacity on Astranis\u2019 first satellite, and there\u2019s likely to be more to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cPDI was created specifically to address this connectivity problem in Alaska,\u201d Chuck Schumann, founder of Pacific Dataport, said in the news release. \u201cThrough our work together, we ultimately hope to provide 40 Gbps [gigabits per second] to 50 Gbps of dedicated bandwidth to bring the entire state of Alaska online with broadband internet \u2014 including many in the state who have no access at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gedmark expects the demand for broadband access to keep rising due to the proliferation of data-intensive applications, including streaming video from services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. And he expects Astranis \u2014 which got a $13.5 million investment boost last year \u2014 to be ready to serve that market.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelp is on the way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An artist\u2019s conception shows Astranis\u2019 telecommunications microsatellites in orbit. (Astranis Illustration) Astranis Space Technologies says it has struck a deal with Alaska\u2019s Pacific Dataport Inc. to provide America\u2019s northernmost state with three times as much satellite data bandwidth as it has today, via its first satellite in geostationary orbit. \u201cIt is a firm contract in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[441,252,5081,20],"class_list":["post-18179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astranis","tag-broadband","tag-pacific-dataport","tag-satellite"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}