Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat has signed up its first customer for its proposed Low Earth Orbiting mega-constellation.

The new business comes from specialised maritime service provider OmniAccess which focuses on the super-yacht market. Telesat says it has signed a “major, multi-year contract for broadband service” with the Majorca-based Spanish business.

Telesat’s service isn’t due to start operations until 2022, although it has a pair of test satellites in orbit.

OmniAccess is the first broadband provider worldwide to contract for Telesat’s LEO services. They will become an important partner for Telesat LEO and the agreement provides OmniAccess with certain limited exclusivity to serve the super-yacht market.

“It is difficult to overestimate the impact the advent of Telesat’s unique LEO service will have on the maritime industry at large,” said Bertrand Hartman, CEO and founder of OmniAccess. “Telesat LEO will allow us to offer a truly global service, combining an extreme level of availability, unprecedented speed levels and an ultra-low latency that rivals, or even exceeds, the fastest of today’s landbased fiber-connections. For the first time in history, onboard systems and services will no longer be restricted by the limits imposed by today’s GEO & MEO-based technologies, finally bridging a digital divide that has held back onboard IT applications for so long. This will be a major game-changer for the maritime industry, profoundly impacting many social and technical aspects of vessel-operations. OmniAccess is genuinely excited to be at the forefront of such an important technological breakthrough with our valued partner Telesat, an innovative and established market-leader we have worked closely with for over 10 years beginning with the first space-segment OmniAccess ever procured. We are looking forward to our next joint ‘first’.”

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