MoU signed between OneWeb India and Gujarat Government to set up India’s first private satellite network portal – Times of India

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government signed an MoU in Gandhinagar on Wednesday with London-based Company, OneWeb and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India for setting up a ‘Satellite Network Portal Site.’
The MoU was signed by Vijay Nehra, Secretary, the State Department of Science and Technology, and Rahul Vatts, Director of OneWeb India Communication Pvt. Ltd.
OneWeb is setting up two ‘Satellite Network Portal Sites’ and one of them will be in Mehsana district of Gujarat. The satellite network portal site is to be launched in Jotana, Mehsana district. It will provide high-speed, low-latency, and affordable connectivity to the government, businesses, consumers, schools, among others. It will provide continuous and secure satellite internet access at affordable rates in the country.
This is a prestigious and of its kind project for providing internet in an affordable manner to villages, district panchayats, local administrative bodies, government departments, among other, across India under the Digital India initiative. Under this, two Satellite Network Portals (SMPs) are being set up in India, one in Gujarat and the other in Tamil Nadu through OneWeb.
This satellite network portal, to be set up at Katosan and Tejpura in Jotana, will be commissioned in 2023 with a possible investment of over Rs. 100 crores in Phase-I. It will create approximately 500 direct and indirect employment opportunities in the state.
In the future, space exploration and space-enabled services will play an important role in areas such as better planning of urban and regional areas, disaster management, logistics services, mapping of natural resources, etc. besides areas of strategic importance such as national security.
Gujarat government stated that OneWeb is a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite company, which has as many as 648 satellites and aims to build a global communication network. OneWeb uses LEO to provide a broadband network instead of using the traditional method of using geostationary satellites located 36,000 km above the equator. The network based on Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit (GEO) has a latency of less than 100ms compared to a network with 500-700ms and can provide secure, resilient, and multi-domain network service.
This technology, which is considered safe, is currently working in Europe and Canada. In India, OneWeb wants to provide satellite connectivity services to mobile network operators and internet service providers in a cost-effective manner.