O3b Networks launched the O3bEnergy 20 service for offshore communications in the Gulf of Mexico. O3bEnergy 20 provides energy clients with an aggregate of 20Mbps throughput to a single site at less than 150 msec roundtrip latency delivered over the O3bEnergy 1.2m antennas.
O3b operates a constellation of satellites capable of delivering up to 1.6Gbps in a single 400mi diameter spot beam. The constellations unique orbital position at 5000mi above the earth is only one fourth the distance of a traditional geostationary orbit and therefore accomplishes a roundtrip travel time of less than 150 msec rather than 500-600 msec for a geostationary satellite.
The difference in latency is significant enough that latency sensitive applications such as ERP (Citrix, Oracle, SAP, real time monitoring and control) will operate over the O3b satellite link just as they do over a fiber connection.
Simon Maher, VP of Global Enterprise Sales said: “The first O3b customers that have experienced the O3b service so far in the Pacific region and Africa have been thrilled with the performance. O3bEnergy 20 will give energy operators in the Gulf the chance to increase upstream productivity to their most important offshore sites.”
O3b began full commercial services in September 2014 on an initial in-orbit constellation of 8 satellites. In December, O3b will launch 4 more satellites to meet current market demand.