Astranis satellite internet coming to the Philippines next year

Astranis, a San Francisco-based company with an alternative approach to providing internet access from satellite, recently signed a deal to provide dedicated service to the Philippines, a first for the archipelago nation.

“They will use this capability to connect hospitals, schools, and other institutions, as well as create community Wi-Fi centers,” Astranis CEO John Jedmark told CNBC.

“We estimate that we will reach up to 2 million people, and they have access to broadband internet that they didn’t have before,” Jedmark added.

The satellite that will provide service to the Philippines is scheduled to be launched in 2024. It represents the latest exercise in Astranis’ campaign to bring service to underserved communities around the world, with the first small satellite dedicated to providing service to “hundreds of thousands of people” in Alaska, and the next satellite, which is expected to serve 3 million people in Peru.

Astranis will own and operate the satellite, with Orbits able to purchase the service provider through a long-term contract to local Philippine internet service provider HTechCorp. Astranis declined to specify the financial details of the contract, but Gedmark emphasized that the service comes at a “very low cost”.

The Philippines has a population of more than 100 million people, spread across more than 7,000 islands that are often mountainous. This makes broadband service “one of their biggest problems to date,” Jedmark said.

Astranis pointed to a recent Third party study which estimated that bringing broadband access to the Philippines, also known as “bridging the digital divide,” would create economic value in the country of more than $100 billion by the end of this decade.

Astranis launched its first satellite in May. It is currently preparing to launch two more batches of satellites – which Astranis calls “Block 2” and “Block 3.” Block 2 launches in the fourth quarter and It will feature four satellites, one of which is dedicated to Peru, and Block 3 will be launched in mid-2024 and It will include five satellites, one of which is for the Philippines.

The company is one of a number of next-generation broadband satellite systems in development, as companies race to meet growing global demand for data — including SpaceX’s Starlink, Britain’s OneWeb, Amazon project kuiper, AST SpaceMobile and others.

Jedmark said previously that the company’s approach represents a unique way to deliver broadband service from space. The company’s dishwasher-sized satellite combines the small form factor of satellites such as Starlink in low-Earth orbit with the distant geosynchronous orbit of traditional players such as viasat.

Geosynchronous orbit, or GEO, is about 22,000 miles from the planet’s surface — a position that allows the spacecraft to remain over a fixed location, proportional to Earth’s rotation.

Jedmark noted that Astranis will be able to “cover the entire Philippines with this single satellite.”