Kymeta & Airbus in Peru to demonstrate ‘SmartBus’ satellite links
Kymeta Corp., the Redmond, Wash.-based company backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and other investors, has demonstrated the performance of its flat-panel satellite antennas in an unlikely setting: on top of buses traveling throughout Peru.
With the aid of partners including Intelsat, Cubic Telecom and Cradlepoint, Kymeta worked with Airbus to create a pilot project called SmartBus. The project involved outfitting interprovincial buses operated by TEPSA — the Peruvian analog to Greyhound Lines — with Kymeta’s satellite terminals.
SmartBus is actually designed to gather up-to-the-minute data on road safety as well as other indicators to improve Peru’s transportation system while connecting people in remote areas of the country.
The system can leverage satellite bandwidth capacity from Intelsat, cellular coverage from Cubic Telecom and a software-defined WAN solution from Cradlepoint to establish real-time data connections along a 460-mile bus route through Peru.
The World Bank and Peru’s Ministry of Transport and Communications lended crucial support to SmartBus.
“This project is making a tangible contribution to development by connecting people in an extremely difficult geographical region of Peru,” Alberto Rodríguez, director of the World Bank for Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, said in a news release. “The critical insights we unearth from this trial will be used by research centers, universities and leading technology companies, helping them to identify problems and possible solutions relating to road safety, meteorology and transport logistics.”
Kymeta said the SmartBus pilot project could open the way to a variety of industry applications for its mobile connectivity platform, including commercial agriculture, fleet management, public transportation and emergency response.
[Originally posted by GeekWire — March 6, 2019]