This is a story about a guy who wants to connect billions of people who are not connected to the Internet. No, this is not Elon Musk. And not Mark Zuckerberg. This is the story of Greg Wyler, CEO of OneWeb, a new startup that aims to send thousands of satellites into orbit by 2018, hoping to deliver high-speed fiber-optic Internet to remote parts of the world.
This is not an unusual mission. Companies like Facebook, Google and SpaceX are betting on drones, balloons and satellites to achieve the same. One can only guess who will win in this new space race, but if you believe an article published in BusinessInsider, Wyler has good chances to take if not the first, then at least the second place. The first reason is that he has a great start.
Wyler first became interested in connecting remote parts of the world to the Internet as early as 2002 after accidentally meeting with the head of the presidential administration in Rwanda. This meeting prompted Wyler to launch Terracom, a telecommunications company that runs a fiber-optic cable and sets up 3G networks to connect Rwandans to Internet services.
“At that time, the world thought that the Internet infrastructure was irrelevant. I thought it was not true. If you have good access to the Internet, you will have economic growth. ”
Terracom became a commercially successful company, but although Rwandans could easily send data across the country, receiving and sending it internationally was still a challenge because it relied on satellites 36,000 kilometers from Earth. If Wyler could move these satellites closer to Earth and use more of them, he could offer people on earth higher speeds.
Wyler checked this model with a company called O3b, which contains 12 satellites at an altitude of 8,000 kilometers from Earth. These satellites have already connected large parts of the world, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to small island chains and Royal Caribbean cruise ships. According to Businessweek, O3b is currently the largest Internet provider in the Pacific.
But Wyler is not enough. As the founder of OneWeb, he wants to reach even more of the world, creating a constellation of hundreds of mini-satellites that will be located 750 kilometers from Earth. According to Wyler, this project will cost him $ 2 billion. This is substantially less than the 10 billion claimed by Elon Musk as part of launching its own satellite system, but this is still a large sum. For this reason, OneWeb has contacted major investors like the Virgin Group and Qualcomm.
The current plan is to sell small antennas that can receive satellite signals to individuals, schools, businesses and hospitals around the world. According to Businessweek, three such satellites can cover an area the size of India.
OneWeb may have made more progress in this area than its more eminent competitors, and yet, experts say, Wyler is now on the ground that crippled many other companies in the past. He himself believes that today these technologies have become more sophisticated and, therefore, more viable.
However, to say that Wyler is preparing for a long jump will be an understatement, especially at the sight of powerful and well-funded competitors. Nevertheless, Wyler says he is not afraid of people like Mark Zuckerberg in his field.
“His pedestal is much higher than mine. I tried to make people understand that communication is a fundamental layer for social and economic growth. But I have an advantage: I know that our system works. ”
The article is based on materials .
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