Telstra and OneWeb begin world’s largest deployment of LEO backhaul with first voice call

The telco is the first in Australia to make a call on a commercial network using a committed SLA backhaul capability from Eutelsat OneWeb.  

Telstra and Eutelsat OneWeb, part of Eutelsat Group today announced that the world’s largest rollout of OneWeb low Earth orbit (LEO) cellular backhaul is underway in Australia.

As part of the rollout, Telstra last week made the first voice call on-air using Eutelsat OneWeb’s LEO solution at Oxford Falls, New South Wales.

It follows the signing of a strategic agreement last year that will see up to 25 Gbit/s of LEO capacity being delivered to Telstra’s most remote mobile customers across Australia to help enhance their experience when using real-time applications such as voice and video calling.

The Oxford Falls site is the first of more than 300 existing remote mobile base station sites currently using satellite backhaul to be connected with Eutelsat OneWeb’s LEO solution over the next 18 months. In time, the capability will help Telstra expand mobile coverage as it supports new site deployments. A key feature of Eutelsat OneWeb’s service is the provision of service level agreements (SLAs) and committed information rates which ensures a specified quality of service and performance.

Iskra Nikolova, Telstra Executive for Network and Infrastructure said the rollout of LEO enabled backhaul to remote mobile sites will enable the telco to bring the very best quality of coverage to regional and remote Australians.

“Eutelsat OneWeb’s LEO solution will help us improve the customer experience in regional and remote areas with lower latency, higher speeds and a more consistent experience.

“There’s also potential for Eutelsat OneWeb as a backup backhaul solution to improve reliability in areas where terrestrial backhaul is susceptible to natural disasters and communities find themselves in isolation.

“The average bandwidth for these sites will increase at least 15x, and the average latency will reduce tenfold.  We’re very proud of this world-first achievement to have a LEO backhaul that guarantees that level of quality service.” Ms Nikolova said.

Cyril Dujardin, Co-General Manager of Eutelsat Group’s Connectivity Business Unit said: “We are delighted to support Telstra in delivering consistent, leading-edge connectivity to its customers in Australia, regardless of location. We are honoured to count Telstra among our most trusted partners, with whom we will continue to collaborate to test and deploy current and future technology.”

Eutelsat OneWeb has fully operational services across Australia and Telstra has been working with the company to test and deploy its latest technology and will continue providing input into Eutelsat OneWeb’s future products and capabilities.

The partnership complements Telstra’s T25 ambition to grow and extend its network leadership position and mobile coverage across the country.