MEO-BASED SATELLITECOMMUNICATION

SOLUTIONS DELIVERINGWHOLESALE CONNECTIVITY

IN AFRICA

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‘Smart’ is disruptive. It drives transformation with a sense of urgency. It is the present and the future. Phones, technologies, cities, banking or transport, when attached with a ‘smart’ tag, exponentially increase in value. Like other regions African countries are also on the road to making technology ubiquitous and improving standards of living. However, hurdles such as insufficient information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and a lack of robust con-nectivity with remote locations continue to impede rapid adoption of smart technology.

Still, African countries have emerged as the fastest smart phone adopters in the world, while Internet penetration in the continent is also growing at the fastest rate compared to anywhere else. The African online population increased by 20% during 2017. Moreover, even as the rest of the world is slowly adapting to mobile payments, Kenya recorded over 6 billion financial trans-actions on portable devices in 2016, involving more than 18 million active users.

Nonetheless, the continent significantly lags from truly experiencing the benefits of Internet connectivity. Most of the Internet usage is concentrated in the urban areas, However, as the con-veniences and benefits become more apparent, the demand for reliable connectivity keeps increasing in the rural and remote regions.

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Growing demand for reliable, high-speed connectivityGiven the vast expanse, difficult terrain and dispersed population, providing connectivity has traditionally been a hassle for operators. Satellite technology has the capacity to effectively address these pain points, since it can provide reliable services to the most remote locations-averting the need for complex, on-ground infrastructure. As satellite services become increas-singly cost-effective, they are gaining favor as the preferred technology for providing Internetconnectivity.

These services employ one of three types of satellites to provide communication services-geostationary satellites (GEO), medium-earth orbit satellite (MEO) and lower-earth orbit (LEO). while GEO satellites are the oldest option and the widely accepted standard for communica-tion, they have a higher latency. But multiple business operations, as well as consumer applica-tions like e-banking, which are popular in rural regions, require low latency. Since end users insist on betterr performance, providers must provide fast and efficient bandwidth that enhances the customer experience.

On the other hand, the network of MEO satellites which orbit at a distance of few hundred to thousand miles away from the surface have a high throughput and a quarter of the GEO’s latency. As a result, MEO facilitates the delivery of high-speed Internet to urban and remote locations where fiber is not available. Subsequently, providers can provision reliable Web access at faster speeds, and meet the growing demand for content and data delivery. Moreo-ver, operators can also enable high bandwidth applications such as video conferencing and video streaming to drive an augmented customer experience.

What that means for providersWholesale carriers that leverage MEO provide a comprehensive suite of value added services such as IP transit and international private leased circuit (IPLC) at affordable costs. IP transit enables robust, cost-efficient, high-speed Internet connectivity for service providers. The service is designed to facilitate local or international bandwidth to guide traffic from the provider’s network to other networks.

IPLC, meanwhile, is a private leased connection that offers fast Internet connectivity between two points, or connects one point with multiple points. Wholesale carriers leverage their robust infrastructure of cutting-edge teleports and capacity on a global network of satellites. As a result, they are equipped to extend local and international connectivity to retail carriers and their customers. This enables enterprises that deal with large volumes of international traffic across overseas sites to have seamless connectivity, transparency and control over routing. Applicable to telecom carriers, mobile network operators, Internet service providers and VSAT providers, both services can be harnessed to provide enterprise wholesale connectivity, with speeds ranging from 100 Mbps to 1Gbps.

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A promising digital futureRobust connectivity has been out of reach for many countries in Africa, leaving them isolated from the rest of the continent and the world. Nonetheless, this digital divide is getting bridged rapidly. F As satellite technology penetration keeps growing, MEO satellites with high through-put and low latency can equip Internet providers and telecom enterprises to offer high-speed connectivity to urban, rural as well as areas where fiber connectivity is difficult to implement.

Businesses that want to provide smart services like these to their end-users require reliable, high speed Internet at affordable costs. And, the global shift toward automation and artificial intelligence is bound to penetrate Africa, further necessitating superior connectivity. With mini-mal investments, the use of innovative technologies like MEO provides the desired connectivity to meets the escalating demand.