Part of Satellite connectivity for the NHS
Technical solutions
At the time of writing there are two companies that offer low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite data connectivity commercially in the UK, Starlink and OneWeb. The capabilities of the solutions are summarised below:
To make sure that the service can consistently meet your use case you must first determine your connectivity requirements based on:
- the number of users (staff, patients and visitors)
- what systems and services staff will require access to such as voice, video calls or Microsoft Teams
- the connectivity requirements for these services, including bandwidth and latency
Whilst this guidance sets out the advertised capabilities of these products and draws on some real-world examples of their applications, these technologies will necessarily differ in capability between different service packages, equipment and location. It will be critical for any NHS organisation deploying them to thoroughly test the technical capabilities before live deployment to sites when staff will become reliant on them.
Starlink
Starlink is the most widely deployed LEO satellite connectivity in England. It has thousands of satellites in orbit with plans for more to be launched. Starlink advertise full coverage across the UK (see Starlink availability map) so can be deployed at any site across England.
At the time of writing, Starlink is the only satellite connectivity solution we are aware of that is in use by NHS organisations for real-time applications, with successful trials of the solution carried out by Manchester University Hospitals, Bath, Somerset and Northeast Wiltshire Integrated Care Board (BSW ICB) and planned deployment by North of England Care System Support (NECS).
Starlink currently offer service packages that can provide up to 200Mbps download speed and 25Mbps upload speed. These are offered with a latency of 25ms (as of 2024).
There are two main service plans offered directly by Starlink; business and personal. Personal plans are not designed for to be used by organisations and as such this document will only examine the business plan options.
There are two options within the business service plan; local and global. Local allows for fixed and mobile roaming in one country over land and should support any roaming or mobile use case within England. Global allows for connectivity over both land, sea and in other countries, where Starlink is available, should this be required. For example, for disaster relief operations.
Both business plans have a range of data caps (50GB/500GB/1TB/2TB ) and hardware options available. They are advertised as offering higher speeds, until the ‘priority data’ cap is reached, at which point data is no longer prioritised over other users and speeds may drop during peak periods. Additional priority data can be added to plans at an additional cost. These packages also advertise priority support, public IP addressing and usage data via a dashboard.
See:
OneWeb
OneWeb have hundreds of larger satellites in orbit and plans to deploy a small number more. OneWeb currently offer service packages offering up to 150Mbps download speed and 30Mbps upload speed.
As far as we are aware, at present OneWeb has not been deployed at any NHS organisation. This is due to the current price (OneWeb is a premium product with service wrap) and ease of deployment (large, fixed antennae and dish required, lack of mobility). OneWeb is designed primarily for building connectivity and network backhaul services; as such we will not explore the capabilities of OneWeb in any further detail in this document.
If you are using, or considering using, OneWeb or any other satellite provider for your connectivity, get in touch with us at [email protected] as we would be keen to work with you.
See:
Other providers
There are several other providers that offer satellite connectivity solutions. These are not considered as commercially available options to address NHS connectivity use cases currently as they are for specific data services only, offer insufficient data rates or are at the very early stages of deploying constellations so cannot provide national coverage.
The Department for Science, Industry and Technology and UK Space Agency have supported trials of satellite connectivity in remote and very hard to reach place. for more information, see:
- Satellite communications to improve connectivity in remote areas - GOV.UK
- Rathlin Island Service Demonstrator: project brief and assessment criteria - GOV.UK
- Nomadic Multi-orbit User Terminal Demonstrator: project brief and assessment criteria - GOV.UK
- Papa Stour Service Demonstrator: project brief and assessment criteria - GOV.UK
Last edited: 29 May 2026 3:01 pm