A recently announced contract in Argentina provides another example of the role of satellites in the increasingly urgent drive to connect rural communities.
Mobile network operator Claro Argentina has chosen Comtech Telecommunications Corp, which designs, develops, produces, and markets innovative products, systems and services for advanced communications solutions, to help it boost rural coverage.
Comtech’s Heights Networking Platform will be used to connect more than 250 rural communities throughout Argentina with high-speed 2G/3G and LTE backhaul, offering a satellite backhaul solution enabling mobile broadband communication for hundreds of thousands of Claro Argentina subscribers.
Comtech EF Data, a subsidiary of Comtech Telecommunications Corp and a leading supplier of satellite bandwidth efficiency and link optimization, is the name behind the Heights Networking Platform. This is a very small aperture terminal (VSAT) platform that combines Comtech EF Data’s most efficient waveforms, Heights Dynamic Network Access, header and payload compression engines, WAN and GTP optimisation, multi-tier quality of service, proven dynamic bandwidth and power management, along with bi-directional adaptive coding and modulation capability.
This, says Comtech, provides the industry’s highest user throughput, highest availability and most optimal resource utilization. Claro Argentina will also deploy a number of Comtech EF Data products that complement the platform.
A further expansion of the Claro network to remote communities will certainly be welcome and, as many countries are now discovering, satellites – and satellite-related technologies like VSATs – may often be the most effective way to make rural connectivity a reality.
