Starting a new week of stories as an Editor for sites like IoT Evolution World, Future of Work News, and 5G Evolution World often involves diving into a stuffed-to-the-brim, techy cornucopia of topics; the latest on smart sensors for home environments, wide-ranging industrial use cases for emerging technologies, new software that empowers team productivity, and plenty of other this-just-in announcements worthy of coverage.
Today’s plunge into the news?
Well, it concerns non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite services for the Internet of Things.
Let’s dive.
NGSO satellites orbit our planet at lower altitudes than geostationary satellites (while completing orbits in shorter periods of time). These satellites, as the name entails, are constantly moving across our skies, and they provide several key advantages; better coverage for mobile satellite services, more efficient use of the limited RF spectrum, lower propagation delay and signal losses, lower overall costs, and even improved global connectivity as a whole.
As one may imagine, these benefits sync right up with IoT. In fact, as of just last week, three companies were able to successfully demonstrate what’s been called a “first-of-its-kind, global, open standards-based IoT service” via NGSO that has big potential to broaden our range of IoT use cases and direct-to-device (D2D) satellite services.
Those companies?
Omnispace, Lacuna Space, and Viasat.
While each of these companies has its own unique story, there’s a relevant common denominator here:
Establishing smarter, more reliable communications.
At a major IoT conference in September, Omnispace was able to clinch success via its demonstration of NGSO IoT satellite connectivity, an achievement which has potential to advance huge projects (and, consequentially, meet the ever-growing demands) for IoT and D2D connectivity. Alongside Lacuna Space and Viasat, Omnispace was able to harness LoRaWAN to offer low-power, ubiquitous connectivity that, with MNO support down the road, will impact existing network and telecommunications aspects and IoT operational approaches on large scales.
From Rob Spurrett, CEO at Lacuna Space:
“We are very pleased to continue to advance the initiative we started with Omnispace. Together, we look forward to delivering powerful IoT services to industries around the globe.”
From Mike Kreller, SVP of Strategic Initiatives at Viasat:
“Viasat is committed to fostering innovation and exploring brand-new technologies with potential partners. We see high demand for our global satellite services across all bands, including an unprecedented opportunity for next-generation mass IoT, for D2D, and for other 5G and 6G applications to be delivered by satellite, for which L- and S-band are ideally suited. Collaborative trials like this are an important step to create an ecosystem of partners.”
And from Jay Yass, Chief Corporate Development and Strategy Officer at Omnispace:
“Omnispace serves a worldwide IoT market. With satellite and ground infrastructure partners, our vision is to deliver seamless D2D terrestrial and satellite IoT connectivity to a variety of global applications and industries. So, this most recent achievement helps us really show the potential of NGSO satellite IoT service on a global scale.”