Marlink to leverage SES’s ultra-high throughput SES-17 satellite and high-performance O3b mPOWER system to bring high-speed broadband to remote villages and enable demanding business applications

In support of intensifying government initiatives to close the connectivity gap for more than 7,500 households across urban and rural population centres in French Guiana, Marlink has been awarded a Public Service Delegation contract to set up broadband Internet and 4G/5G services via satellite networks covering the entire French region. SES and Marlink  announced they have signed a 15-year agreement leveraging SES’s multi-orbit geostationary (GEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite network to deliver life-changing, high-speed services to more than 30,000 users throughout the overseas territory of France.

Funded in part by the European Union, the French Government and the Collectivité Territoriale de Guyane (CTG), Marlink and SES will deliver high performance internet access of 30 Mbps across the country. The companies will build and manage local gateway infrastructure to enable the delivery of nearly 3.5 gigabits per second of high-powered satellite capacity for access to consumer broadband, fixed and mobile services in French Guiana. This will also allow schools and institutions located in the region to benefit from better speeds and lower latency to ultimately bridge the digital divide. The services will be split roughly evenly between the recently launched SES-17 high throughput satellite stationed over the Americas and the next-generation O3b mPOWER system.

“We are proud to bridge the digital divide and be part of this nationwide digital transformation to support economic and social growth by connecting critical services and remote communities, as well as educational institutions for the next 15 years,” said Alexandre de Luca, President, Energy, Enterprise and Government at Marlink. “Our provision of digital services has grown with customer demand, and we are again responding with agility and flexibility to deliver connectivity as a service.”

“The digital divide is a challenging reality, especially for small remote villages in places like the Amazonian Forest in French Guiana, and we are partnering with Marlink to enable digital inclusion in some of the most isolated communities in the world,” said Simon Gatty Saunt, Vice President of Networks Sales, Europe at SES. “SES is honoured to play a role in bringing the most advanced and empowering broadband connectivity to the towns, villages, businesses and people throughout the region, which will unlock the full potential of French Guiana.”

SES-17 is SES’s most high-performance GEO satellite and has played a key role in accelerating digital inclusion programmes across the region and improving access to affordable and high-quality satellite-enabled broadband services for business and residential applications. O3b mPOWER is SES’s second-generation MEO communications system and delivers unrivalled performance, enabling customers’ operations with high throughput, predictable low latency, and high availability.