Telstra signs 16.5-year deal to support Viasat-3

Telstra and Viasat have agreed to a 16.5-year arrangement in which the Australian telco will develop and manage ground infrastructure for the Viasat-3 geosynchronous satellite constellation when it launches.

Telstra will consolidate satellite access nodes at hundreds of its sites around Australia, as well as develop and manage connectivity between those sites and several data centres that will hold core networking equipment, under the terms of the agreement.

When Viasat-3 was first announced, the corporation intended the first satellite to launch in late 2019 or early 2020, but fate and the coronavirus conspired to set those plans back.

“Later this year, we will begin the launch cycle of our Viasat-3 constellation, which is a trio of the highest capacity commercial geo-satellites ever built. Each one, delivering more than a terabit per second … total network throughput, which is about a thousand times more efficient than when you compare it to our first-generation satellites,” Viasat president of space and commercial networks Dave Ryan said on Wednesday.