The war in the Middle East underlines the value proposition of sovereign satellite communications, partners of a recent satellite deal between Astranis<\/b> and MB Group<\/b> said Monday during SATShow Week. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing as a result of these dramatic shifts in global stability and global security is this growing need for sovereignty,\u201d said Doug Abts, chief commercial officer of Astranis. <\/p>\n
The company inked a $200 million deal in January with MB Group, an Omani conglomerate that\u2019s diversified from its oil and gas service roots and operates in 22 countries around the globe. <\/p>\n
Astranis offers customer-managed, software-defined services from dedicated GEO satellites. \u201cOur model boils down to control,\u201d said Abts, \u201ccontrol of the data, and over time, constantly owning the outcome on the ground, rather than owning and operating the steel and titanium in space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other element is time to market,\u201d he said, noting that the satellite for MB Group is set to launch this year. <\/p>\n
That ability to respond to demand at speed had become more valuable as a result of the deteriorating security situation, said MB Group\u2019s Mahfoodh AlShaikh, speaking by video link from Oman. \u201cWith all the drama around us and the demand around us, from different agencies or end users, I think it\u2019s very expensive to wait,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For MB Group, with operations in 22 countries \u201cthe need for stable, secured, closed connectivity is one of the very vital tools for our day to day operations,\u201d said AlShaikh.<\/p>\n
But they shared that need with others in Oman and in the region, and AlShaikh sketched out a future in which MB Group might broker its sovereign communications to other corporations and government agencies with a similar need for security and control over their communications. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not only oil and gas,\u201d he said of the use cases for the satellite. \u201cIt will serve the telecommunication companies in the country. It will serve the educational sector. It will serve the government agencies abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the signing ceremony with Astranis, AlShaikh said, MB had met with potential customers regarding applications varying from in-flight connectivity to cellular backhaul.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have started seeing a very serious attraction, frankly speaking, from our government or private sectors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The MB Group satellite will offer coverage to as many as 15 countries all over the Middle East. The ground infrastructure is already in place in Oman, and the next teleports will be in Saudi Arabia, and then in Iraq \u201cinshallah,\u201d AlShaikh said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The war in the Middle East underlines the value proposition of sovereign satellite communications, partners of a recent satellite deal between Astranis and MB Group said Monday during SATShow Week. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing as a result of these dramatic shifts in global stability and global security is this growing need for sovereignty,\u201d said Doug Abts, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47304,"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":[],"class_list":["post-47303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47303"}],"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=47303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}