O3b mPOWER: A new era in global cloud-scale connectivity

Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES announced today (Monday, 11 September, 2017) the beginning of a new era in global cloud-scale connectivity and high power data services with the launch of O3b mPOWER, a revolutionary and powerful networks system that will deliver efficient high-performance network communications to users all around the world.

The rapidly expandable and highly scalable O3b mPOWER system will leverage innovative space and ground technologies, and enable SES Networks to deliver fully-managed services in the dynamic mobility, fixed data and government markets. O3b mPOWER is capable of delivering multiple terabits of throughput globally and is scheduled for launch starting in 2021.

SES has contracted its first mPOWER technology partner, Boeing Satellite Systems, to build seven super-powered medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites. The constellation will have 30,000 fully-shapeable and steerable beams that can be shifted and switched in real time to align with customers’ quickly changing growth opportunities, making it the most bandwidth-efficient system ever. O3b mPOWER will provide unrivalled coverage to an area of nearly 400 million square kilometres, four fifths of the Earth’s surface.

SES already successfully operates the only non-geostationary broadband system through 12 MEO satellites which deliver high-throughput low latency connectivity, and will be launching another eight MEO satellites in 2018 and 2019. O3b mPOWER leverages the same building blocks with dramatically increased throughput, coverage and flexibility.

O3b mPOWER will also create a unique ecosystem of value-add service and technology partners from all over the world. Together with SES, O3b mPOWER partners will invest in significant ground infrastructure innovations that converge storage, computing and routing resources with software intelligence and application-specific antennas and will introduce a new concept for the network endpoint: a small, fast and easy-to-install O3b mPOWER Customer Edge Terminal.

Karim Michael Sabbagh, President and CEO of SES, said, “With the launch of O3b mPOWER, SES is opening a new era of connectivity, fundamentally transforming the role and capabilities of satellite. O3b mPOWER is a unique system with exponentially more power, performance and flexibility which sets the technology at the highest level, offering a visionary roadmap for next generation technology. We are leveraging the pole position we hold today by relying and building on the strengths of our existing O3b Medium Earth Orbit constellation.

"We are taking a long-term strategic commitment to further boost our capabilities, going beyond boundaries and redefining the frontiers of what satellite connectivity can accomplish. O3b mPOWER will be instrumental in empowering customers to massively scale up their businesses and capture new growth. This will enable us to further execute on our differentiated service offering and deliver profitable growth in line with SES’s financial framework.”