Pivotel and SES announced they have signed an agreement to build a new satellite ground station at the Pivotel teleport in Dubbo, New South Wales. The ground station will support O3b mPOWER, SES's next-generation non-geostationary (NGSO) constellation and enable the delivery of enhanced telecommunication services to regional communities.
The project, which has come about as part of the ongoing partnership between leading remote communication provider Pivotel and global content and connectivity solutions provider SES, will provide much needed high-performance and low-latency connectivity services across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
The terabit-level constellation will deliver multiple gigabits-per-second beams of data services to customers, providing fibre-like connectivity with more bandwidth and improved flexibility to remote and underserved regions across Australia and the Pacific islands.
The Dubbo gateway will commence operations in the second half of 2021 and will track SES's O3b mPOWER constellation operating at Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) 8,000km away from Earth. This ground station will also support telemetry, tracking and commanding systems needed to control the satellites during the early stages of launch and complete integration with the Satellite Operations Centre.
Pivotel has been hosting an O3b gateway since 2013, when SES's current MEO constellation was launched. Through the O3b gateway, SES has been instrumental in enabling the delivery of connectivity services to communities and the regional government entities of countries such as Papua New Guinea, Nauru and Federated States of Micronesia.
The new satellite ground station was officially announced at an event attended by Federal Minister for Regional Health, Regional Communications and Local Government, the Hon Mark Coulton MP, and the Dubbo Mayor Councillor Ben Shields.