SATELLITE network provider Intelsat is on track to launch its $250m Intelsat New Dawn satellite, which is targeted at the African market, by the end of the year, Flavien Bachabi, vice-president for Intelsat Africa said yesterday.
Intelsat New Dawn is intended to provide telecommunications and television channels, and to extend broadband access and services to rural areas in most of Africa for at least 15 years.
Bachabi said the lack of broadband in Africa sparked the need to design a satellite that would address the continent’s needs.
“The top five users of broadband (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and SA) represent almost 80% of the entire African market and that needs to change. There is a lot of focus on broadband and we will win the battle,” he said.
Intelsat New Dawn has already sold capacity worth 350m to companies such as , Gateway Communications, Zain Nigeria and Gilat Satcom.
Bachabi said most of the service providers would use the satellite as a backup to their fibreoptic cable or wireless services, while others would use it to expand their network coverage, especially to rural areas where laying fibreoptic cable could be expensive.
Another customer, MTN Business, a subsidiary of , will connect its enterprise customers to link their offices across sub- Saharan Africa.
Gateway Communications has secured more capacity for corporate network services offered by its parent company Vodacom.
Bachabi said Intelsat New Dawn would complement the undersea fibreoptic cables such as Seacom, as different technologies were “good for different services”.
Intelsat also provides broadcasting signal to broadcasters such as pay TV provider MultiChoice, one of its biggest clients.
Intelsat New Dawn is 25,1% owned by Convergence Partners, co- owned by businessman Andile Ngcaba.
Intelsat New Dawn and SES Astra have the same aspirations: to bridge the digital divide in telecommunications in Africa and believe that satellite is an alternative technology to provide a wide coverage.
mochikot@bdfm.co.za