San Francisco-headquartered Astranis, which ranks among the world’s leading operators of dedicated communications satellites, has just revealed that it is collaborating with Orbits Corp to bring the first-ever dedicated internet satellite to the Philippines.
It has been revealed that the satellite will provide sufficient bandwidth to connect up to two million people across 5,000 remote and rural communities in the Southeast Asian nation.
Meanwhile, Orbits Corp is a satellite services provider and the sister company of a local internet service provider, HTechCorp, which costs more than 20 years of experience in providing internet services to the over 7,000 islands of the Philippines.
In effect, the majority of the internet penetration in the Philippines is confined to large urban areas, while remote areas suffer from intermittent access to connectivity, or none at all. It is estimated that only 11,000 of the country’s 42,000 local communities are currently covered by fiber.
The Astranis satellite will be the first dedicated to the Philippines, where traditional connectivity solutions like fiber, microwave, and large satellite systems are limited by the country’s geography and exposure to natural disasters.
The satellite dedicated is scheduled to launch in 2024 alongside four other Astranis satellites.
(Sources: Astrani; SpaceRef)
