African satellite gets a boost with vendor-neutral earth station

Details: James Barton; Category: Satellite Networks; 16 November 2012; 7470 views

Satellite service providers, carrier and Internet service providers across Africa will soon be able to provide connectivity through the continent’s first vendor-neutral satellite earth station...

Satellite service providers, carrier and Internet service providers across Africa will soon be able to provide connectivity through the continent’s first vendor-neutral satellite earth station. Launched by data centre provider Teraco, the station will be completed in March 2013.

A satellite earth station is a terrestrial station with multiple parabolic antennas or receivers that function as a hub connecting a satellite with a terrestrial telecommunications network. The station will provide clients positions on which to deploy their receivers at the Isando Data Centre site. Teraco Managing Director Lex van Wyk said: “this strategic offering reinforces Teraco’s status as the communication hub for Southern Africa”.

Satellite service providers will be able to position their receivers towards the centre to enable direct access to a community of over 50 telecommunication companies without the need to incur significant capital expenditure. They will also be able to distribute their services without having to incur on-going last mile costs, which to date have largely restricted SSP service offerings to the broader market.

Through the free public peering service NAPAfrica, clients have access to an immediately visible and continuously growing network of peers with just one peering agreement. Peering at NAPAfrica allows carriers and providers, internet businesses and financial organisations to directly connect their internet infrastructure through a distributed, fast, and cost-effective ethernet fabric to reduce IP-transit costs and to improve network connectivity and resilience. This move will now make satellite connectivity more affordable to South African corporates.

“The teleport will use existing and new Teraco infrastructure as well as link directly into the data centre via fibre,” says van Wyk. “We are providing access to municipal power, resilient generator power, top-class security as well as access control.”