Company touts mini-satellites as boost to Northern internet

A flock of miniature satellites could soon be orbiting the Earth and helping provide internet to remote northern communities, according to Toronto-based Kepler Communications.

The company is sending two football-sized satellites into orbit later this year.

"Basically think of them as cellphone towers in space," says Samer Bishay, the company's chief strategic officer and also the CEO of telecommunications company ICE Wireless.

"They are receiving data from devices, and these devices could be on the ground, they could be other satellites flying in space."

The satellites use nano-technology, allowing them to be one-hundredth of the size of traditional telecoms satellites, says Bishay. He adds that their diminutive size doesn't affect their ability to transfer data.

"They're five kilograms each but they're able to go up to two gigabits per second.

"It could potentially provide next generation-type applications such as telehealth, remote learning and high speed [data]transmission," he says.

Test run

The pair of test satellites scheduled to launch in November won't provide "real-time" internet coverage that requires a whole "constellation" of satellites spread out around the globe, pinging data from one satellite to the next. But Bishay says the two satellites will still have a short term benefit for some companies and organizations operating in the North.

"A lot of companies in the North that don't have access to any type of high speed internet, have to backup their data and actually fly it on a plane down south.

"With our November launch we can actually have them start at least backing up data [as] every 90 minutes [the satellite] orbits the Earth."

Bishay says Kepler could service mining and oil companies, as well as organizations needing to upload weather or seismic data from remote locations.

The company intends to launch moresatellites in incremental steps after November's test flight. Whether those satellites will focus on the North depends on whether the company can tap into a$500 million "Connect to Innovate" fund, established by the federal government to improve Northern internet access.

• Federal government spending $500M to expand high-speed Internet to remote communities

"As time moves on, then Northern Canadians will benefit from it, but that might not be our priority if we're not able to get support from the Canadian Government," says Bishay.

He says if they are able to secure government support, his company could have a network in place by 2021.