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EchoStar Mobile Takes Pioneering Steps in Satellite-enabled IoT Connectivity

The EchoStar Mobile team is pleased to announce the successful activation of our pan-European LoRa®-enabled network. The network, operating in EchoStar Mobile’s licensed S-band spectrum from the EchoStar XXI satellite, went live after successful installation and commissioning of gateway equipment at the Hughes Europe teleport in Griesheim, Germany.

Hughes Network Systems and EchoStar Mobile are both subsidiaries of EchoStar Corporation, working together to provide satellite communications solutions around the world via innovative and industry-pioneering technologies and platforms.

EchoStar Mobile is operating the world’s largest, and first multinational, LoRa®-enabled IoT network, offering real-time and bi-directional connectivity across Europe. LoRa® (meaning “Long Range”) is a low-power networking protocol ideal for connecting battery-powered devices. Until now, the technology has been largely dependent on the deployment of terrestrial infrastructure, constraining its use. This innovative direct-to-satellite connectivity solution provides a number of benefits for customers seeking to transfer critical data between widely distributed, remote or moving assets, including in the utility, transportation, railway, logistics and agritech sectors.

It delivers resilient connectivity to any location across the UK, Europe and Scandinavia, plus provides a built-in, bi-directional capability that enables organizations to send and receive data and commands between their devices. You can learn more about LoRa® in this recently published whitepaper.

What’s next for our pan-European LoRa®-enabled IoT network?

Along with 17 partners participating in our early adoption program for LoRa®, we are evaluating prototype devices and testing the network with applications such as railway track monitoring, smart farming, utility monitoring and asset tracking in preparation for commercial service launch, on track for late 2022.

The launch of this network is the result of a truly collaborative and global effort, with critical technical analysis coming from the Hughes U.S. team and installation of the gateway infrastructure and system testing from the Hughes Europe team. Our partner, ProEsys Technologies, successfully delivered the solution amid a global supply chain crisis.

We are proud to be pioneering this innovative technology that will unlock the power of IoT via LoRa® ecosystems. Stay tuned as we work toward the next milestone of certifying and then producing the OEM radio module for use by commercial partners and integrators, followed by commercial launch later this year.