Satellite-enabled 5G backhaul demoed in Middle East

Telecommunications companies SES and du say they have demonstrated the first satellite-enabled 5G backhaul in the Middle East utilising SES’s medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites. The aim of the demonstration was to demonstrate how SES’s current O3b constellation could extend 5G coverage to remote locations and support du’s enterprise customers, including offshore energy sites, with highly reliable, high-throughput and low-latency network connectivity.

The live proof of concept saw numerous tests conducted over an SES’s O3b satellite, including voice and data scenarios to measure quality of service performance and stress test load capacity. The low-latency and high-throughput 5G backhaul link showed O3b is an ideal solution for 5G satellite-enabled networks, with quality of experience (QoE) on par with terrestrial backhauling technologies.

“du has vast experience using satellites for its own cellular backhaul, as well as for delivering satellite-enabled data communications services to our enterprise customers, but we need much better throughputs and low-latency performance to support our enterprise, cloud and data growth applications,” said Saleem AlBlooshi, Chief Technology Officer at du. “O3b mPOWER promises to provide the dedicated multi-gigabit per connection scale with cloud-optimised and low-latency performance to provide the required quality of experience (QoE) with the flexibility of satellite.”

John-Paul Hemingway, Chief Strategy & Product Officer at SES, added, “We appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with du on this demonstration of high-performance MEO services and how we can jointly deploy the Middle East’s first satellite-enabled 5G backhaul network. du can leverage more guaranteed-SLA bandwidth, with greater flexibility, via O3b mPOWER to rapidly generate new revenue streams by expanding high-quality 4G/5G to remote areas and by cost-effectively connecting its enterprise customers.”

SES has already started deploying O3b mPOWER technology, which should enable high-performance services with high throughput, predictable low latency and flexibility to meet traffic demand. The start of service for O3b mPOWER expected in 2023 should enable du and its customers to experience secure, carrier-grade performance supporting business-critical, cloud-based applications over the public internet or via a dedicated, private connection.

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