Aerial basestation sees Indonesian backing
UK aerial basestation startup Stratospheric Platforms (SPL) has received strategic investment from a telecoms operator in Indonesia and is testing its technology with BT in the UK.
SPL is developing a drone to carry a 5G basestation and antenna up into the stratosphere to act as a broadband basestation in areas without coverage or during a disasters. The drone is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell to provide power for the aircraft and the basestation.
The backing from PT Profesional Telekomunikasi Indonesia (PROTELINDO), the largest telecommunication infrastructure company in Indonesia, will explore the use across the 17,000 islands and 1.9 million km2 of land area. The complex topography, including mountainous landscapes and high seas, presents challenges for telecommunications coverage.
Once developed, SPL’s uncrewed aircraft will have the ability to provide direct coverage to users over 15,000 km2 and connection speeds of up to 200 Mbit/s with full 5G compatibility.
The antenna system is being tested by UK operator BT at its Adastral Park in Ipswich.
SPL’s phased array antenna will be placed on a high building to simulate a high-altitude platform, to test its interaction with BT’s 5G secure architecture, connecting with its Open RAN testbed. This test will include supporting multiple user groups and different potential use cases, concurrently on the same network.
“We’re delighted to be partnering with SPL to start realising the huge potential of HAPS aircraft to further strengthen our UK 4G and 5G network technology leadership. This highly innovative and transformative project has the potential to further enhance our UK 4G and 5G footprint, which is already the largest and most reliable in the UK, to connect unserved rural areas and enable exciting new use cases for private users,” said Tim Whitley, Managing Director Research and Network Strategy at BT.
“This partnership will build further on SPL’s world-first 5G demonstration from the stratosphere achieved in 2022,” said Richard Deakin, CEO of SPL.
“We are delighted to be working with the PROTELINDO team as we look forward to building on our recent 5G stratospheric demonstrations and move to our production standard hydrogen-powered aircraft and full-service roll-out,” he added.
“We believe SPL’s HAP aircraft can serve as a “tower in the sky” for areas with telecom coverage challenges,” said Ferdinandus Aming Santoso, CEO of the PROTELINDO Group. “This capability is relevant in both developed and emerging markets.”
www.stratosphericplatforms.com
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