Telesat is a Canada based satellite communications company, which was established in 1969. It is all set to launch a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, aiming at enabling a high-speed broadband from the space.
This company is now all set to compete Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Elon Musk, Chief Executive of Tesla Inc. has planned a Starlink LEO into orbit alongside his SpaceX and Jeff Bezoz has a line-up of LEO named Project Kuiper, which serves as a call for serious competition with Telesat. Dan Goldberg, CEO of Telesat called the LEO constellation as the Holy Grail for his shareholders in a statement. Despite the competition, he sounded confidently when he called the LEO as Holy Grail. This proves to give a competitive streak in global broadband delivery.
Goldberg even said that he was literally losing sleep six years ago when he realized the company’s business model was in peril, as Netflix and video streaming took off and fiber optics guaranteed lightning fast internet connectivity. This company, Telesat has been in satellite services way longer than Amazon and SpaceX. Instead of focussing on consumer market like them, Telesat seeks deep pocketed business clients. It is now targeting and narrowing it down to wealthy business clients as their strategy.
Then in 2015, on his flight from Paris, after attending a conference where Latency was the theme, Goldberg wrote down his initial ideas for a LEO constellation on an Air Canada Napkin. Telecast’s first launch is planned in early 2023, a first batch of 298 satellites being built by Thales Alenia Space, with partial service in higher latitudes later the same year, and full global service in 2024. 15 geostationary satellites of Telesat will cater to ISPs, government networks, and TV broadcasters, who are most concerned about latency. Latency is nothing but the time lag which affects internet user experience. Telesat’s LEO will orbit around 35 times closer to Earth than a geostationary satellite with internet connectivity at a super high speed, analogous to fiber optics. Hence, it is termed as Lightspeed.
