TAMPA, Fla. — Microsoft mentioned Dec. 14 it’s partnering with satellite tv for pc operator Viasat to seek out options for bringing web entry to 10 million unserved or underserved folks inside three years.
Viasat is the primary satellite tv for pc operator to hitch Microsoft’s Airband initiative, which goals to ship connectivity to 1 / 4 of a billion folks by the top of 2025 by means of a mixture of applied sciences.
Microsoft arrange Airband in 2017 and mentioned the initiative had enabled high-speed web entry for greater than 51 million folks globally — about 20% of its objective.
Along with telcos, Airband seeks to facilitate connectivity-enabling partnerships amongst tools makers, native and regional power entry suppliers, nonprofits, and governmental and non-governmental organizations.
“Microsoft and Viasat will collectively overview choices to co-invest on a project-by-project foundation,” Evan Dixon, Viasat’s president of worldwide mounted broadband, instructed SpaceNews.
The businesses will first take a look at initiatives that might leverage Viasat’s fleet of current satellites in geostationary orbit, together with its upcoming ViaSat-3 constellation.
Nonetheless, Dixon mentioned Viasat will even discover options from low Earth orbit in its search to ship “broadband in the most efficient and cost-effective method.”
Half of the ten million folks the businesses are partnering to achieve are in Africa, the place they mentioned Viasat’s help would assist increase Airband’s work for the primary time to Egypt, Senegal, and Angola.
Solely 40% of Africa’s roughly 1.4 billion inhabitants is presently on-line, according to data from the United Nations.
“Working with Viasat, we are going to use satellite tv for pc to achieve distant areas that beforehand have had few, if any, choices for standard connectivity,” Teresa Hutson, Microsoft’s vice chairman of expertise and company accountability, mentioned in a press release.
“Collectively, we will quickly scale and increase Airband’s attain, exploring a wider pipeline of initiatives and new international locations the place we haven’t but labored.”
In keeping with Microsoft, Airband has helped join 9 million folks in Africa so far throughout the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria. By the top of 2025, it goals to have helped join 100 million folks on the continent.
Microsoft mentioned the partnership with Viasat builds on the connection its information heart enterprise already has with the corporate — along with different satellite tv for pc operators — by way of Azure Area, which goals to integrate terrestrial and space networks to allow world cloud entry with low latency.
