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Taiwan taps European satellite corporations to guard wartime communications

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As fears of warfare with China escalate, Taiwan is seeking European make stronger for its communications programs.

The island nation nowadays tapped products and services from two satellite corporations on the continent: the UK’s OneWeb and Luxembourg’s SES.

To e book decided of disruption for the period of a seemingly battle, SES will put in force a medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellite network, Taipei’s digital ministry announced last week.

SES confirmed the mission to TNW on Monday. The company talked about it aimed to present Taiwan “an emergency backup network in case of damages to its present terrestrial networks.”

The pass is phase of broader plans to make stronger Taiwan’s digital resilience. The country hopes non-geostationary satellites can give protection to products and services equivalent to on-line calls, video conferencing, and dwell broadcasting.

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To boot to the SES deployment, Taiwan has sought the encourage of OneWeb. Audrey Tang, the country’s digital minister, visited the British company in June to discuss deploying a low-Earth orbit (LEO) gadget. Tang talked about OneWeb — which is backed by the UK govt — will present satellite protection for all of Taiwan by the head of the year.

The network would extend the communications recommendations on the island. By the head of 2024, the nation objectives to set up over 700 satellite receivers, which is ready to produce a backup network for the period of any catastrophe.

The plans reveal the rising position that satellite corporations are playing in world conflicts. They’ve been namely current in Ukraine, the establish SpaceX’s Starlink has equipped web products and services since Russia’s paunchy-scale invasion. The network has kept the country connected for the period of disruption to terrestrial programs.

The warfare in Ukraine has additionally strengthened the case for the EU’s satellite constellation. Known as IRIS2, the network is designed to retain web gain entry to for the period of disaster eventualities. The $6.2bn (€5.7bn) mission is scheduled to launch by 2027.

“For the first time, the European Union will beget its own telecommunications constellation, in advise in low orbits, the contemporary frontier for telecommunication satellites,” MEP Christophe Grudler, rapporteur on the EU stable connectivity programme, talked about last year.

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