O3b Texas gateway. Photo: O3b Networks.

[Via Satellite 11-11-2014] O3b Networks has created a new offshore communications service O3bEnergy 20 for energy sector customers in the Gulf of Mexico. The service provides an aggregate of 20 Mbps throughput to a single site with latency of less that 150 milliseconds round trip using 1.2-meter O3bEnergy antennas.

According to O3b, the reduced latency of its Medium Earth Orbiting (MEO) satellites compared to Geostationary Earth Orbiting (GEO) satellites — which is approximately 500 to 600 milliseconds round trip — is significant enough to support latency sensitive applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) — Citrix, Oracle, SAP, real time monitoring and control, for example.

O3b began full commercial service in September 2014 with eight satellites that can deliver up to 1.6 Gbps in a 400-mile diameter spot beam. The company’s next four satellites are slated to launch in December.