Kazakhstan’s Minister of Digital Development Bagdat Musin has disclosed an agreement to test Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband access services provided by OneWeb, reports Profit.kz. The ‘OneWebDemo’ pilot project will test the provision of OneWeb’s high speed internet connectivity for remote villages, under aims of the Digital Kazakhstan programme to close the digital divide in rural regions.
OneWeb is scheduled to launch its latest batch of 36 LEO satellites this week to bring its total in-orbit constellation to 146 satellites, under a plan to launch a 648 LEO fleet providing global services. Note that OneWeb emerged from bankruptcy in November 2020 with the backing of the UK Government, Bharti Global, SoftBank Group Corp and Hughes Network Systems. A previous memorandum of understanding (MoU) between OneWeb and Kazakhstan’s Astana International Financial Centre in January 2020 was aimed at accelerating broadband connectivity in Kazakhstan while establishing a technical hub in the country to support OneWeb’s communication service delivery across Central Asia, although the status of that plan became unclear when OneWeb entered bankruptcy in March 2020.
Source: https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2021/03/24/kazakhstan-tests-oneweb-satellite-broadband/