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Comcast Business has struck the first deal of its kind with SpaceX subsidiary Starlink to offer satellite connectivity to enterprise customers, especially in rural or underserved areas.
The partnership, first shared with Tech Brew, will allow customers to buy one package that includes access to satellite connectivity without a separate satellite subscription, Jon Friedman, an SVP at Comcast Business, told us.
“We have a number of customers that have a need for a complete solution, and that means [at] all their sites, wherever they’re located, they want to make sure that they’re having amazing connectivity,” he said. “Typically, we’ve got a great solution for the vast, vast majority of them. But every now and again, we’ve run into a situation.”
That situation might look like a state government that has chosen Comcast Business as its contracted internet provider, Friedman said. The company’s hardwired infrastructure has no problem serving the state capitol building, but that same infrastructure isn’t in place to connect the state’s park system. That’s when a satellite network like Starlink’s can fill in the gaps, he said.
“You can imagine a Department of Natural Resources site in the middle of a state park, and it’s really, really hard to get there. Yet, having wi-fi for the customers is a great solution and a great offer,” according to Friedman. “When we think about solutions like that, Starlink is a really great opportunity.”
The new offering could also be useful for companies that don’t necessarily operate highly rural outposts but that are seeking additional backup for their networks in the event of an outage. Friedman pointed to banking clients that typically have “a primary, secondary, tertiary, and a fourth network. And they want to make sure that they’ve got redundancy, any which way the signal goes.”
The announcement comes as low-Earth orbit (LEO) broadband technology evolves and goes mainstream. Popularized by companies like SpaceX and Amazon with its Project Kuiper, LEO constellations that comprise clusters of smaller but more numerous satellites have the potential to offer faster and more consistent coverage than their larger predecessors that orbit further from Earth.
While satellite broadband has in the past been considered less cost-effective and less reliable, that’s changing as the technology advances.
“Starlink is excited to work with Comcast Business to deliver reliable connectivity to customers,” Jason Fritch, VP of Starlink enterprise sales at SpaceX, said in a press release first shared with Tech Brew by Matt Helmke of Comcast Business. “This agreement with a leading service provider is an acknowledgement of Starlink’s growing role as a critical element in modern enterprise networks.”