How Hughes Managed LEO Solutions Power Customer Success

Businesses today need reliable, secure connectivity across global geographies, including remote locations. In some cases, these businesses require connectivity where traditional technologies, such as cable and fiber, simply can’t reach. Hughes Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite connectivity services can support latency sensitive applications and provide service in these previously unconnected areas. As a OneWeb distributor and partner, Hughes delivers LEO satellite services that provide customers with available networks and superior connectivity, despite remote or rural locations and severe weather. 

Here we share examples of how customers leverage Hughes Managed LEO solutions to support business success.

Dependable Backup Connectivity

For retailers, poor network performance means unhappy customers and outages equal lost revenue. One Big Box retailer that equipped each store with both primary and backup connectivity—with the secondary often using wireless 4G or geostationary orbit (GEO) satellites—realized it needed better connectivity. With each store generating more than $1 million in revenue per month, even small performance degradations are unacceptable. When severe storms took out cell towers and disrupted cable and fiber lines, causing a prolonged outage, the retailer was forced to close stores temporarily. 

The retailer needed a high-performance, high-availability solution to ensure network continuity at each location so customers wouldn’t experience any disruptions in their shopping experience. The retailer selected Hughes Managed LEO Service to deliver dedicated capacity to every store, ensuring locations wouldn’t have to worry about sharing best-effort capacity with consumer applications and users. Hughes Managed LEO Service, an enterprise-grade LEO satellite service, now provides backup connectivity at every store. It leverages the OneWeb LEO constellation for low-latency broadband with a high data throughput and global coverage, with 24x7 support and as-a-service delivery. Now the retailer can maintain operations and remain available to customers regardless of location or weather conditions.

Remote Broadband Connectivity

Military locations must be strategic, and that doesn’t always translate to connectivity options. A military operation in the Arctic region needed to equip its base with better bandwidth 24x7 to support mission-critical surveillance and reconnaissance activities. It also needed to provide service to support the morale, welfare, and recreation for hundreds of personnel assigned to the base. 

Hughes Managed Broadband with LEO satellite connectivity provides the military operation with reliable enterprise-grade, low-latency broadband in its North Pole environment. With Hughes, the military operation is able to ensure bandwidth is available 24x7, ascribe to pre-set Service-Level Agreements (SLAs), and deliver critical data to military sites and personnel anywhere in the world. Hughes also helps the military connect hundreds of soldiers everywhere on the base with a responsive user experience. The Hughes solution integrates mission-critical networks with a variety of transport options, which delivers global reach and coverage while also providing redundancy and resiliency.

Secure WAN Connectivity

Wide-area networks (WANs) let companies connect disparate locations and enable real-time communications and resource sharing among these remote locations. A national pharmacy chain with thousands of locations relied upon its WAN to provide a consistent customer and employee experience. The pharmacy wanted to find a reliable backup to its primary WAN operations to ensure critical pharmacy operations remained available when customers and employees needed them. Being a pharmacy, HIPAA regulations and compliance are imperative. 

The chain invested in the Hughes Managed LEO backup solution to provide a low-latency, broadband backup that covers every site in the pharmacy chain’s network. The Hughes service activates with automatic failover to connect a single store, several locations, or a larger footprint with hundreds of sites—almost instantly. Not only is highly sensitive healthcare information protected in compliance with HIPAA, but customers, physicians, and pharmacy staff can use interactive applications to share information in real time. With LEO broadband, the pharmacy chain is able to enjoy two-way network connectivity everywhere, reducing the possibility of delays in providing customer care.

Critical Infrastructure Monitoring

Pipeline operators must ensure oil production is running smoothly so they can transport oil to the refineries on time. The pipeline operator relied on a monitoring system including various services, such as wireless, GEO satellite, and wired internet—creating a patchwork network that resulted in a clumsy management experience. It also became costly to integrate a range of hardware and software solutions, as well as the expense of labor to keep the system up and running. 

A Hughes Managed LEO Broadband implementation provides the pipeline operator with end-to-end satellite connectivity that offers coverage of the entire pipeline network—from production fields to refiners—with a single-source solution that offers reliability and security. The Hughes solution delivers consistent levels of service to every point on the network and makes it easy to add new coverage points. The 24x7 operation monitoring provides anomaly detection and notification to the pipeline operator to stay on top of network issues, and the built-in network resiliency minimizes service loss.

Private Wireless Networks

Mining operations are often located in remote areas and can span several hundred square miles. Still, managers must be able to stay in contact with field workers and remain connected to the equipment, including remotely operated machinery. Losing contact with the site is not an option. A corporate mining company needs a communications network to provide data, voice, video, and IoT services. 

A reliable, high-speed broadband private network powered by Hughes LEO satellite connectivity meets the needs of remote mining operations of all sizes. With LEO-provided bandwidth, the mining operations were able to create a canopy communications network that provided coverage, capacity, and control. LEO broadband services meet all the mining operation’s on-site communications needs via a single provider, keep operations up and running, and assure revenue is not lost. 

To learn more about the Hughes portfolio of satellite connectivity solutions, see all that Hughes has to offer here.