Strategic Feasibility Study for a National Telecommunications Satellite in Peru

The global context shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of connectivity, transforming it from a perceived privilege into a fundamental necessity for social, educational, and economic activities. In countries with complex geographies such as Peru, ensuring equitable access to telecommunications services remains a significant challenge. While national initiatives—such as the deployment of a fiber-optic backbone network—have improved connectivity across many regions, important gaps persist in remote and hard-to-reach areas due to geographic, climatic, and investment constraints. In this context, satellite telecommunications emerge as a strategic solution to extend coverage and complement existing terrestrial infrastructure. This paper presents a feasibility study for the development or acquisition of a national telecommunications satellite in Peru, aimed at expanding connectivity to underserved populations and supporting key sectors such as education, remote work, agriculture, and rural development. This work analyses an explicit geopolitical and financing comparison of precedent cases in the region, a corrected and internally consistent bandwidth-demand model, a multi-reference cost benchmark drawing on five comparable satellite systems, and a financial decision-making model that weighs a dedicated national satellite against co-owned regional capacity and emerging low-Earth-orbit (LEO) alternatives. The study evaluates technical and operational requirements, including coverage analysis, power budgets, bandwidth estimation, and service demand projections, and considers the integration of the satellite system with existing ground infrastructure across different implementation scenarios. The analysis indicates that a national or regionally shared satellite system is a technically credible way to address elements of the digital divide, but that its economic and strategic advantage over co-owned capacity or LEO-based alternatives depends strongly on financing structure, full life-cycle costing, and the degree of operational sovereignty sought, rather than on payload capacity alone.