Telesat inks deal for high-speed modem chip for satellite broadband

Telesat Holdings Inc. announced a new agreement with satellite communications technology developer SatixFy Israel Ltd. Wednesday morning, as Telesat moves towards launching its Lightspeed satellite broadband service in Canada. Under the deal, Telesat will gain early access to SatixFy’s second generation Sx3099 modem chip, capable of transmitting “multiple” gigabits per second in both directions. According to a Telesat Canada press release announcing the deal, the chip “can support high-capacity links and beam hopping with lower power consumption, smaller cell size, and lower price points than competitive offerings.” Telesat is SatisFy’s first customer for this particular chip, which will be used to facilitate satellite broadband internet services that will be offered through Lightspeed, Telesat’s upcoming low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. Such an announcement may serve to boost confidence in the speed and quality of Telesat’s satellite broadband offerings, which are still in development. In Wednesday’s press release, Telesat vice president for LEO, Erwin Hudson, said that it “has the features and capabilities to meet the challenging enterprise-grade service delivery requirements of the Telesat Lightspeed network.” The Sx3099 chip has not yet been integrated into Telesat’s systems — Telesat is expecting to launch its commercial satellite broadband services in Canada in the second half of 2023, although it will not offer a direct to consumer service, instead partnering with other internet service providers. In November, the federal government formalized a $600 million deal — previewed in a memorandum of understanding in 2019 — with Telesat, which will see the company launch LEOS to sell capacity to internet service providers in Canada’s North. Telesat is currently one of at least three companies planning to offer satellite broadband to Canada (and in particular, remote parts of the country, including the North), alongside Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) and its Starlink constellation, set to cover most of Canada by late 2022, as well as OneWeb Ltd., also aiming to launch broadband services by some point in 2022.

Telesat inks deal for high-speed modem chip for satellite broadband

Brief | March 10, 2021

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Telesat inks deal for high-speed modem chip for satellite broadband

Brief | March 10, 2021

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