SES wins CNT for Galapagos Islands
April 26, 2023
By Chris Forrester
Helped by the availability of its latest O3b mPOWER satellites, SES has won a contract from CNT Ecuador which will use mPOWER to carry Internet and cellular services for the Galapagos Islands.
Telecom provider CNT and SES announced what they describe as a major Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite capacity expansion agreement to deliver more life-changing broadband connectivity and 3G/4G/5G mobile services to residents, businesses, and tourists throughout the isolated archipelago in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
As part of the upgrade agreement, CNT has significantly increased its MEO capacity from 1.5 gigabits per second to 2.5 gigabits on SES’s O3b constellation, with plans to migrate to the recently launched next-gen O3b mPOWER system. CNT will leverage the boost in MEO satellite capacity to deliver high-speed Internet access, mobile and pay-TV services to homes and businesses throughout the Galapagos, including the largest island of Isabela. The Galapagos Island chain is about 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, where SES’s O3b satellites have been enabling state-of-the-art connectivity since 2015.
SES says its MEO satellite network is fully capable of delivering reliable, ultra-high-powered connectivity to the extremely remote chain of volcanic islands. SES is bringing immediate network service to the Galapagos, well in advance of the long-awaited arrival of a subsea fibre cable in 2024 and without any environmental impact on one of the world’s most diverse and delicate ecosystems of plant and animal species.
“This milestone boost in MEO capacity represents the exciting next stage in a long-term partnership between SES and CNT dedicated to delivering on Ecuador’s promise to truly bridge the digital divide across the Galapagos Islands,” said Ralph Suástegui Brborich, CEO of CNT. “With the current O3b satellite service and O3b mPOWER connectivity on the way, the people, businesses, communities of Galapagos and the thousands of tourists who visit each year will have access to some of the region’s best Internet and 4G/5G mobile services available.”
“SES is thrilled to support the Ecuadorian Government and CNT in closing the digital divide throughout the Galapagos Islands with the far-reaching footprint of our O3b MEO satellites. These reliable, high-performance networks are forever changing lives and communities for the better, while having zero negative impact on this fragile environment,” said Omar Trujillo, VP/Enterprise Sales Americas at SES. “We’ve seen the difference our satellite-delivered connectivity has made throughout this remote archipelago, and we look forward to building on that success and accelerating Ecuador’s digital inclusion plan as we migrate to the O3b mPOWER system in the months ahead.”