Hughes Communications India today announced its satellite broadband deal with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

ONGC, India’s largest producer of crude oil and natural gas, has selected the Hughes JUPITER System to upgrade its existing satellite network across India.

Hughes Communications said the size of the satellite broadband deal is INR 45 crore or $6.7 million. Hughes will complete the satellite project on a turnkey basis. The project will include new network installations, upgrades and network transition across 94 fixed sites and 112 nomadic sites with maintenance for two years.

Hughes India is the number one VSAT provider, ahead of Bharti Airtel.

Hughes India will implement the JUPITER System to augment its existing C‐Band Network with the latest HTS (High-throughput satellite) technology.

ONGC, a government-owned company, will benefit from multi‐service data, voice, and video traffic with high spectral efficiency across nearly 200 offshore and onshore oil and gas platforms, drilling rigs and vessels, including enterprise managed services in locations spread across the country.

The new setup will upgrade ONGC’s existing ICNET and MFTDMA networks to a state-of-the-art architecture employing four JUPITER gateways, SCPC carrier-grade modems and several large antenna and RF systems.

“We are proud to have been awarded this important project by ONGC, amid a tough competitive tender scenario,” said Partho Banerjee, director, Hughes India.

ONGC is relying on satellite broadband for extending connectivity to remote off-shore areas typically well beyond the reach of terrestrial and wireless options.