[Satellite News 09-11-08] The O3B in O3B Network‘s name stands for “the other three billion,” the target market for the company’s ambitious 16-satellite constellation.
O3B wants to connect three billion customers in developing markets with high-speed Internet through a trunking and backhaul pipeline while decreasing latency and improving quality — a project reportedly worth $650 million.
    A financial pitch-in of 43 million euros from Internet giant Google Inc., along with funding from Liberty Global Inc. and HSBC Principal Investments, has pushed O3B’s low-Earth orbit satellite system project into the spotlight, and as CEO Greg Wyler puts it, “levels the playing field” for global communications infrastructure.
    Wyler spoke with Satellite News News Editor Jeffrey Hill about the future of the O3B constellations and how he plans to compete in the satellite broadband market.

Wyler: We have two core products. One is core network and backhaul, and the second is backhaul to cell phone towers. We have a 3G/WiMax backhaul system where we can illuminate an area and give them capacity. Within one area, we can give approximately 300 megabytes of capacity, depending on the area and region, and enable all of the nearby cell towers to share that as low-latency capacity in order to bring 3G services. Thales Alenia Space is building the satellites. It is a pretty cool system, however, there is really no new technology. It uses the best existing technologies in a way they have not been used before.

Wyler: We will have announcements from ground segment providers over the next few weeks who will say they are ready to provide this ground segment. For instance, they will have O3B approved dishes or modems that you can drop on the face of a cell tower. We also have thousands — probably tens of thousands — of initiatives around the world that are working with the ground segment in having a hands-on at these health and community centers to enable people to use our bandwidth.

Wyler: For Google, the more Web traffic there is, the better it impacts the global economy. There are 3 billion people who are currently not able to be economically integrated with the rest of the world due to lack of communications. This constellation will level the playing field of the world economy.

Wyler: Let me answer with an example. Your grandmother may or may not use a computer. If she does not use one, we have to ask certain questions. ‘How much is her life affected because of the availability of communications?’ ‘How easy is it for her to go to a Wal-Mart and acquire whatever drugs she needs?’ ‘What [information technology] system underlies the logistics that enables her to have a high quality of life?’ Our idea of communications is not just one person being on the Web, it is about enabling economies and improving all areas of the quality of life. It is not necessarily about one person directly using the Web to browse the Internet.

Wyler: Our constellation works great for providing medical services over communications. One of the problems of video conferencing over geostationary satellites is latency. Videoconferencing with doctors would be a perfect application for the O3B constellation. We use raw capacity. We are fundamentally, bit for bit, able to compete with fiber, and we will have the satellite coverage to reach anywhere in the world without laying cable.
    Going back to my earlier example, in terms of drug delivery, let us suppose you want to deliver malaria drugs out to a population of 30 million people, and you have 4,000 health centers you need to distribute these drugs to. You need to know what quantity of each drug needs to go to each health center, and you have to keep track of who is taking the drugs and make sure they are distributed responsibly. Tracking all of this without a significant communications network would be impossible. That is what this is so crucial to these economies. It is about enabling court systems, police departments and health centers to have efficient and effective [information technology] systems.

Wyler: We are not in competition with [other operators]. What we actually offer for the [geostationary] satellites is capacity that they can purchase from us. [Geostationary] satellites are not very good at trunking. Our satellite are excellent for trunking. [Geostationary] have high latency and a very wide area beam being used for point to point communication. They can buy our capacity and then use it for its trunking customers. By doing that, they free up capacity on their satellites and then they can resell that capacity.

Wyler: There are two bellwethers that are very clear indications. The first is the growth of the GDP (gross domestic product) in 150 emerging market economies around the world. Some of these emerging markets have GDPs that are growing phenomenally fast, between two and ten percent GDP growth per year. That means they have more cash in their pocket to spend.
    The second bellwether is the investments being made in cellular and mobile infrastructure being made in these emerging markets. That gives a good indication of what communication pipes are being laid that need to be filled. If billions are being spent on these pipeline infrastructures then you know that these pipes will need something flowing through them and that is where our network comes in.
    The pickup and interest in broadband in emerging markets is tremendous, if they can get it and afford it. Telecenters with shared computers all around the world are jam-packed. Customers pay a fee and get their 10 minutes of online time. These customers are just like customers in developed markets. They want YouTube, MySpace and Facebook. The problem is, you have 10 computers sharing a single 56k connection, and there is no way to adequately feed this demand.