This is a story about a guy who wants to join is not billions of people connected to the Internet. No, it's not Elon Musk. Not Mark Zuckerberg. This is the story of Greg Wyler, CEO OneWeb, a new startup that aims to send thousands of satellites in orbit by 2018, hoping to deliver high-speed fiber optic internet in remote parts of the world.
This is not an unusual mission. Companies like Facebook, Google and SpaceX are betting on drones, balloons and satellites to do the same. We can only guess who will win in this new space race, but according to an article published in BusinessInsider, at Wyler has a good chance to take if not the first, then at least second place. The first reason - he had a great start.
Wyler first became interested in connecting remote parts of the world to the Internet back in 2002 after a chance meeting with the head of the presidential administration of Rwanda. This meeting led Wyler run Terracom, telecommunications company, which holds the fiber optic cable and adjusts the 3G network to connect Rwandans to Internet services.
"At that time the world thought that the Internet infrastructure does not matter. I figured that it was not true. If you have good access to the Internet, you will have economic growth. "
Terracom became commercially successful company, but at the Rwandans could easily send data across the country, to receive and send them to the international level still remained a challenge because this process relies on satellites are located in the 36,000 kilometers from Earth. If Wyler could push these satellites closer to Earth and enable more of them, he would be able to offer people on the ground at high speed.
Wyler tested this model with a company called O3b, which comprises 12 satellites at an altitude of 8,000 kilometers from Earth. These satellites have joined the major part of the world, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the small island chains and cruise ships Royal Caribbean. According to Businessweek, O3b is currently the largest Internet service provider in the Pacific Ocean.
But this is not enough Wyler. As the founder OneWeb, he wants to reach an even greater part of the world, creating a constellation of hundreds of small satellites, which will be located 750 kilometers from the Earth. According to Wyler, this project will cost him $ 2 billion. This is substantially less than the $ 10 billion claimed by Elon Musk in the part of the launch own satellite system, but it is still a large amount of money. For this reason OneWeb associated with major investors like Virgin Group and Qualcomm.
At present, the plan is to sell small antenna that can receive signals from satellites to individuals, schools, businesses and hospitals around the world. According to Businessweek, three such satellites can cover an area the size of India.
OneWeb, perhaps made more progress in this area, rather than its more famous competitors, and yet, experts say, Wyler is now on the ground, which crippled many other companies in the past. He himself believes that today these technologies become more sophisticated, and therefore also viable.
Whatever it was, say Wyler preparing for skydiving, would be an understatement, especially in the form of a powerful and well-funded competitors. Nevertheless Wyler says he is not afraid of people like Mark Zuckerberg in his field.