UK-based company Avealto completes development of its wireless infrastructure platform (WIP), a solar-powered stratospheric airship designed to deliver broadband internet and mobile connectivity to underserved communities worldwide, with a shorter time-to-market and at a fraction of the cost of traditional satellites.
— Avealto Ltd., the UK-based high-altitude platform company that has developed a new category of telecommunications infrastructure, today announced the successful completion of its core research and development program.
Photo courtesy of Avealto
With three approved patents and a critically reviewed communications payload in hand, Avealto is now positioned to move into factory production and commercial deployment of its wireless infrastructure platform (WIP).
The solar-powered, helium-filled stratospheric airship measures approximately 100 meters (331 feet) in length, operates at an altitude of 20 kilometers above the clouds and weather. Each platform will provide telecom and internet capacity within a 240-kilometer-diameter region. Avealto platforms will provide telecom and internet services that are equivalent to a satellite, but at a much lower cost and with higher quality
“This is the moment we have been working toward,” says founder and CEO of Avealto, Walt Anderson, who is also a serial telecommunication entrepreneur and an early investor.
“The Research & Development is done. The engineering questions have been answered. We are now raising the funds to set up our factory, build the vehicles, and bring this service to the billions of people left behind by high-priced telecommunications satellites.”
More Than a Decade in the Making
Based in London, Avealto was built on the conviction that improvements in the efficiency of batteries and solar panels would enable commercially viable high-altitude airship technology that could provide services equivalent to telecom satellites at a much lower cost and with better quality.
Avealto’s development journey was rigorous. Its early engineering work began with a feasibility study and flights of smaller prototype vehicles. Balloon flights were also used to test component operations in the very cold environment of the stratosphere.
Avealto used a computer simulation to model the optimal shape of its powered airship. Subscale testing of a 15-meter (50-foot) prototype commenced at the Brabazon hangar in Bristol, UK, in late 2020. On June 28, 2021, Avealto began supervised flight testing under the oversight of the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), a milestone that validated the company’s autonomous control and buoyancy management systems.
Avealto also partnered with UK radio-frequency equipment specialist ETL Systems to design and complete a Critical Design Review for the WIP’s multi-band Communications Systems Payload, which will serve mobile operators and internet service providers across the company’s initial coverage markets.
According to Anderson, Avealto’s WIP system will require a capital expenditure many times lower than that of traditional satellite infrastructure, will deliver internet capacity at a significantly lower cost per gigabit per second, and achieve latency hundreds of times lower than GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit) satellites and 10 times lower than LEO (low Earth Orbit) satellite systems.
Avealto will also not sell services directly to consumers. Instead, the company operates as a wholesale infrastructure provider, selling capacity and backhaul services to mobile operators, wireless internet service providers, and maritime communications customers, who in turn deliver those services to their own subscribers. Avealto’s pricing to telecom operators will enable them to offer lower prices to compete with satellite operators in areas that used to be served ONLY via high-priced satellites.
“We have gone through the hard part, but now, the time has come,” Anderson adds. “We know what we can build, we understand how it will work, and the market is waiting for this lower cost and higher quality alternative.”
A Market That Cannot Wait
More than two billion people worldwide still lack reliable internet access. The World Economic Forum designated HAP systems one of its Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2024, noting that the platform can deliver connectivity that neither satellites nor terrestrial towers can match across challenging terrain.
Avealto’s initial deployment target is Malaysia due to cooperation and support from its regulatory authorities and from a large Malaysian-based telecom operator that plans to become a future customer. However, Avealto is also exploring deployments in other Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
Anderson mentions, “This is not a vision for the future. Avealto is a transformative technology that is ready to generate revenue and help to eliminate the global digital divide.”
Avealto is now seeking $50 million in a Production Round investment to establish a manufacturing facility in the United Kingdom and produce its first three full-scale WIP vehicles for commercial operations in Malaysia.
The investment will fund both the factory build-out and the vehicles needed to launch commercial service operations. Anderson believes early investors in the round see Avealto well-positioned compared to other telecom satellite constellations, as it will be the lowest-cost and highest-quality provider in the remote regions it will serve.
For more information, please visit https://avealto.com/.
About Avealto
Avealto (translates from Spanish as “high bird”) is a privately owned, London-based high-altitude platform company founded in April 2013 by Walt Anderson. The company designs, builds, and operates solar-powered, unmanned, lighter-than-air vehicles that operate in the stratosphere at an altitude of 20 kilometers to deliver broadband internet and mobile telecommunications to remote and underserved regions. Avealto sells wholesale capacity to mobile operators, wireless internet service providers, and maritime communications customers.
Contact Info:
Name: Walt Anderson
Email: Send Email
Organization: Avealto
Website: https://avealto.com/
Release ID: 89197071
If you detect any issues, problems, or errors in this press release content, kindly contact [email protected] to notify us (it is important to note that this email is the authorized channel for such matters, sending multiple emails to multiple addresses does not necessarily help expedite your request). We will respond and rectify the situation in the next 8 hours.