Satellite operator SES and du from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), a leading telecom operator in the United Arab Emirates, say they have successfully demonstrated the first satellite-enabled 5G backhaul in the Middle East utilising SES’s medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites.
The aim of the live demonstration was to demonstrate how SES’s current O3b constellation could extend 5G coverage to remote locations and support du’s enterprise customers, including offshore energy sites, with reliable, high-throughput and low-latency network connectivity.
The live proof of concept (POC) saw numerous tests conducted over SES’s O3b satellite, including voice and data scenarios to measure quality of service performance and stress test load capacity.
SES says the low latency and high throughput 5G backhaul link showed O3b is an ideal solution for 5G satellite-enabled networks with quality of experience (QoE) at par with terrestrial backhauling technologies.
As regular readers will know, there’s more on the way from SES, which has already started deploying O3b mPOWER technology, which will, it says, enable high-performance services with superior throughput, predictable low latency, and unmatched flexibility to meet traffic demand.
The start of service for O3b mPOWER is expected this year. In December SES announced that the first two O3b mPOWER satellites had been successfully launched into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The initial constellation consists of 11 satellites.
Ecuadorian state telco CNT and Vodafone Cook Islands are among the companies that have recently signed up to use the new satellites.
