Low-cost Broadband Project Launches Funding Drive

Avealto has opened a 12- to 18-month, $50 million funding round to advance its plans to offer a low-cost broadband alternative to low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations. The program is principally aimed at regions with poor existing broadband coverage, for which Starlink is the only real current option.

SpaceX has now raised Starlink’s rural prices while preparing a retail push that puts it in competition with its own telecom customers. Avealto, by contrast, plans a wholesale-only operation dedicated to supplying telecom operators with reliable capacity.

Rather than rely on satellites, Avealto’s system uses solar-powered high-altitude platform station (HAPS) airships that fly in the stratosphere at about 20 kilometers to provide effective ground coverage of about 45,000 sq km. The airships deliver the signal directly into telecom operators’ networks.

Using HAPS instead of satellites cuts costs by about 80%, according to Avealto, while avoiding byproducts of satellite operations such as space debris and particulate pollution from rocket launches. Each airship is fully reusable, the company says; when needed, it can be landed, serviced, reconfigured, and relaunched.

Avealto has secured a facility at Lydd Airport in Kent, England, as a manufacturing center that could create up to 50 highly skilled engineering jobs. The funding drive will finance the factory as well as a full-scale prototype demonstration set for September in Wales.

A facility at Lydd Airport in Kent has been secured as a manufacturing center, which could create up to 50 high-skilled engineering jobs. The funding drive will not only finance this, but also a full-scale prototype demonstration scheduled for September and to be conducted in Wales.

Avealto signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesian partners in 2023 and is also progressing discussions in Malaysia, with Southeast Asia seen as the most likely region for initial commercial operations.