By Peter J. Brown

Satellite technology is going to play an essential role on multiple fronts in 21st century Africa. This huge continent has an enormous and growing appetite for satellite and wireless services in general. The regional priorities vary widely across Africa from the standpoint of telecommunications infrastructure and satellite equipment, and service providers are scrambling to address the needs of a growing list of customers.

Africa is coping with a long list of social, political, environmental and economic problems as well, ranging from recurring environmental disasters such as drought, to persistent tribal conflicts in central Africa in particular. Although there are bright spots, the overall business climate is unpredictable, and stability is not always present.

What should be the top priority for the satellite industry in Africa today? "Considering the low income level of most African countries, the top priority of the satellite industry should be to deliver very low cost services using low cost terminal equipment. Solutions to be implemented should certainly include high-power satellite coverage," says Ahmed Toumi, director general and CEO of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (ITSO). "Creating a worldwide market for terminal equipment through a common standard also would lower costs through economies of scale. In addition, promoting the interoperability of satellite systems could be of tremendous help in providing competition to African end users."

With a growing number of African customers seeking new voice and data services, is the satellite industry doing a good job keeping up with this demand? "The satellite industry is trying hard to keep up with the demand for new services, especially the ones requested by mobile network operators and ISPs and to bring to life innovative technical solutions," says Toumi. "However, the satellite industry players are limited by the technical characteristics of the existing capacity and, in my opinion, satellite operators are not doing enough to promote low cost terminal equipment adapted to the specific African environment."

There is no question that Africa is a potentially lucrative market. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recently estimated that Africa would experience a 64 percent increase in all telecom traffic by 2005, for example. The fact that telecom reform is now a precondition for U.S. aid is one reason for this prediction. The International Monetary Fund and the ITU, with its universal access policy, are important strategic players in terms of opening up new markets in Africa.

Flavien Bachabi, regional vice president of Africa sales at Intelsat Ltd., reports that while voice traffic accounted for 50 percent of the estimated $114 million of Intelsat’s total revenue in the region in 2002, data is the fastest growing segment. Corporate network applications represent the second largest service category in Africa, at 22 percent after voice.

Internet users in the region almost doubled in the period from 1995 to 2000, according to Bachabi, with the exception of South Africa, which experienced a 123 percent increase. "We intend to maintain our position, and we are seeing a noticeable upturn in demand for basic Internet connectivity," he adds. "As Intelsat moves from a satellite-centric to a network-centric company, we are partnering more aggressively and positioning ourselves to take advantage of the broader trend involving the growing cooperation between the public and private sectors in numerous African countries."

Providing mobile and cellular phone backhaul and cell to cell or base station interconnection services for companies such as South Africa-based Vodacom is another hot growth sector, as companies realize that satellite offers a pathway that might be more reliable than terrestrial alternatives, according to Bachabi.

Driven By A Lower Entry Cost

The entire realm of hybrid satellite wireless services, which extend into the cellular phone and rural telephony sectors, has a distinct edge today in Africa for several reasons. "Combining satellite with wireless local loop (WLL) is a very attractive approach, but a more stable and a possible global-harmonized spectrum for the WLL component is important," Toumi says. "Otherwise, this hybrid approach runs the risk of simply adding cost and complexity to end users."

"In Africa in general, because of the lack of local-loop connectivity, such as fiber, cable, DSL, etc., hybrid terrestrial wireless and satellite transmissions not only have an edge, but in most cases are essential," says Jean-Pierre Kabanda, director of sales for Africa at New Skies Satellites NV.

At the same time, as noted a moment ago, the demand for access to the Internet shows no sign of abating. New Skies includes Comet Technology and GS Telecom as major customers in Africa for Internet connectivity and Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) networks. GS Telecom is based in Nigeria, and U.K.-based Comet Technology has SimbaNet subsidiaries in Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria. Cellular operators on New Skies include MTN Group in Uganda, Cameroon and Nigeria and MSI Celtel, which is an indirect customer, having bought capacity through Netherlands-based Carrier2Carrier.

"Other than cellular operators, we don’t have a lot of customers providing telephony services in Africa. What we are seeing, however, is a number of our data and Internet customers who are interested in providing voice services, including Voice over IP (VoIP)," says Kabanda.

"Our most successful value-added service in Africa has been our IPsys Internet backbone connectivity services. Our IPsys customers can bypass all shared ground networks and associated congestion points as well as any terrestrial connectivity gaps," adds Kabanda. "This enables them to seamlessly deliver rich Internet content to even the remotest locations at high speeds."

New Skies is also looking to offer more video services to African customers, such as video turnaround services and, via its NSS 7 satellite, companies such as Media Overseas are now broadcasting DTH programming to several countries in West Africa. And what is going on elsewhere? In May, Kuwait Messaging Services/FalconStream announced it would use multiple Ku-band transponders on NSS 6 and NSS 7 to offer IPsys-based access services to more than 2,000 customer sites, including many in North Africa.

African service providers are as eager to add new revenue streams as their satellite industry partners. Companies like Vipersat Networks, which has worked with Carrier2Carrier on deployments in Angola, South Africa, Mozambique and Cameroon, are making steady progress in the region by demonstrating they can provide a flexible and low cost solution. Vipersat Networks was recently acquired by Comtech Telecommunications.

"The African market is driven by a lower entry cost with an emphasis on small networks, which then grow easily and seamlessly as the customer base expands," says Tim Floerchinger, vice president of sales for Vipersat Networks. "Customers can allocate bandwidth within pre-assigned pools of bandwidth in increments down to 1 Hz of resolution. They can buy or sell bandwidth on demand."

Vipersat prefers Selective Time Division Multiple Access (STDMA), which Floerchinger labels as an ideal solution with capabilities to switch to Single Channel Per Carrier (SCPC) dynamically based upon node driven demand.

"We offer a remote that automatically switches bandwidth to optimize space segment based upon load and application," says Floerchinger. "It allows our customers to run their multimedia applications including IP videoconferencing and streaming video, along with VoIP and their IP data traffic, with the correct amount of their aggregate bandwidth allocated to each remote based upon its needs."

Back To Basics

Fabrice Langreney, COO at Hartford, CT-based DiscoveryTel, which acquired Warsun International in January, is placing a great deal of emphasis on voice traffic in Africa. "Data in Africa today is not profitable enough. No operator is making money there on data via satellite DVB. Voice is paying the bills, and as many aspiring service providers in the region are waking up to this fact, they are coming back to the basics and realizing that they cannot offer data services without offering voice first," says Langreney.

UAE-based Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Co. is making strides with its satellite phone services in Africa. Approximately 30,000 to 40,000 of Thuraya’s total subscriber base of 110,000 is in a zone extending from North Africa as far south as Tanzania, according to Thuraya spokesperson Sana Bagersh. In addition, after months of pilot tests, Thuraya announced in early May that Intracom would supply Thuraya with 500 outdoor payphones, 10,000 chip cards and a payphone management system. Public calling offices are part of Thuraya’s game plan here as well.

"We are looking at coin operated and prepayment options for our payphones. In Nigeria, we can report that our handsets are already being used like payphones with various people charging multiple users by the minute," says Bagersh. "Africa is a very sophisticated telecom environment in general where you can see people adjusting very quickly to new concepts and technologies. We have been approached by several companies to offer higher speed data via our satellite," says Bagersh.

Big Plans For Africa

VSAT service provider Telkom SA Ltd. in South Africa is moving ahead with an ambitious VSAT project built around the Skystar 360E solution from Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. Throughout the next five years, up to 30,000 360E VSAT terminals will be deployed all across sub-Saharan Africa. Customers will have access to broadband services via Ku-band and C-band pathways.

Gilat reports that its business in Africa is growing steadily as a percentage of its total business worldwide. In 2000, Gilat’s revenues in Africa as a percentage of total revenues were only 1.6 percent. That figure grew to 4.3 percent in 2001 and to 8.3 percent last year, with a backlog in Africa in 2003 (i.e. deals not yet recognized in terms of revenues) that is several million dollars higher than total African revenues for 2002. Continued growth is expected. As far as rural telephony goes, Gilat’s rural telephony activity in Africa is about 20 percent of its total rural telephony business around the world.

According to Janna Koretskaya, associate vice president of sales and marketing at Gilat for Central and Eastern Europe, CIS and SADC, the Skystar 360E will join both the Gilat Skystar Advantage and DialAw@y VSATs so that African customers have suitable options with respect to broadband and lower speed Internet access. Gilat is holding up its successful creation of a rural satellite-based telecom infrastructure in Colombia as a model that could be duplicated in Africa, too.

"We are adding additional VoIP modules upon request for our higher speed broadband Internet customers, while at the same time, we are not concentrating on voice specifically," says Koretskaya. "While we do not intend to abandon our traditional large enterprise or rural telephony markets, we are placing a much greater emphasis here on SME (small-to- medium enterprise) and SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) customers in Africa with the Skystar 360E, which can accommodate between 10 and 15 PCs per site."

VSAT and DTH together are quite active sectors in Africa, according to Steve Rich, CT-based Panamsat Corp.’s vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"We have two DTH platforms available in the region, PAS 7 and PAS 10. With respect to data networks and two-way IP services including VoIP, we are seeing several local service and teleport operators who are purchasing bulk bandwidth and then packaging their own services," says Rich.

"Our customer base is now much more aware of what services they can put on their products. When it comes to Committed Information Rate, and any required bursting, the customer now tends to want to manage any over-subscribing himself," Rich adds. "Terminal pricing has dropped significantly in the past three years and bandwidth pricing has become more competitive."

Nigeria has taken some time to adapt to a Western style product base, but now such things as Internet caf�s, where customers can send and receive e-mail, have really taken hold. Rich notes that in this fast-paced business environment, the satellite operators cannot afford to turn a blind eye to single terminal installations or smaller circuit transactions. "You push the little guy off at your own risk," says Rich. "As for the hybrid satellite wireless market, it is not clear that this will be economical to operate over the long term."

For Rich, identifying the right mix of products is a challenge. The days of offering bandwidth alone have ended, and now matching solutions-based requirements to a broad mix of customers is the name of the game.

Eutelsat has a longstanding relationship with TV broadcasters in the North African market including public and private sector clients in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt, according to Robin Eliade, Eutelsat’s head of commercial sales, African region. All of Eutelsat’s fleet of European satellites cover this region. Eutelsat began offering C-Band services last year via 10 transponders on its Atlantic Bird 3 at 5 degrees W. This satellite connects much of Africa to the United States and Europe, along with the the Indian Ocean, the Middle East and the Caribbean.

"We believe that Atlantic Bird 3 is the top choice when it comes to the delivery of very high-quality professional services including TV distribution, VSAT networking, PSTN and particularly GSM trunking," says Eliade. "In the broadband market , we procured a C-band hub for two-way Internet access in 2Q of 2003, and this hub is expected to be operational in mid-2003."

For Ku-band DTH and one way IP services in Nigeria, for example, Eutelsat operates W4, which serves as the Multichoice digital pay-TV platform, among other things. Its W1 satellite offers coverage across southern Africa and it has attracted clients for video distribution and contribution as well as for IP services.

In the second half of 2003, Eutelsat plans to launch its W3A satellite. This will expand Eutelsat’s high power Ku-band presence in sub-Sahara Africa, and position the company to address the growing demand both for regional video DTH and distribution, and for IP and corporate services with small terminals.

"This satellite is also equipped with Skyplex onboard processing so that digital carriers can be uplinked individually to a satellite and multiplexed in space," says Eliade. "This could be a particularly attractive feature in a market such as Africa where traffic can be dispersed over large areas."

Distance Education Knows No Borders

In terms of where the satellite industry is heading in Africa, there are plenty of things to get excited about and plenty of urgent needs that warrant attention. Distance education and telemedicine are two areas of concern. Is satellite technology being used to the fullest extent possible today in Africa when it comes to these services?

"Clearly much needs to be done in this field. More than any other region in the world, Africa needs to harness the potential of satellites to better serve vital public services such as education and health care," says ITSO’s Toumi. "These public service applications would be significantly enhanced through the use of broadband technology, as they are bandwidth consuming and request always-on connections."

The African Virtual University (AVU), which is backed by the World Bank, brings together 14 universities including the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in Rwanda, the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, to name a few.

AVU is proof that distance education continues to evolve in the region, and in many respects, AVU is a next generation version of the National Technological University in the United States. AVU is one of several Netsat Express Inc. customers in Africa. David Hershberg, CEO of Globecomm Systems Inc., the parent company of Netsat Express, is excited that AVU is among the first Netsat Express customers to be using the new SkyBorne content delivery platform.

"This represents the culmination of a three-year development project. AVU is obtaining a complete end-to-end solution as we will supply satellite-based services and infrastructure," says Hershberg. "AVU intends to use our SkyBorne platform to deliver engineering and scientific courses to universities throughout Africa."

The SkyBorne platform is a multicasting solution that employs both Reliable File Transfer (RFT) for hybrid VSAT networks and Statistical Rebroadcast RFT in any instances where receive-only networks are in place.

Data files are not only retransmitted multiple times by the SkyBorne content delivery system to ensure high-speed, reliable delivery, but inbound rebroadcasts are also scanned on site by the local SkyBorne receiver so that any missing bits or data are identified and then injected into the data file in question. An auto-negative acknowledgement cycle activates the on-demand rebroadcast server at the hub to rebroadcast only the specific information missed at any sites. The positive acknowledgement cycle ensures and reports all sites have received a complete package. This vastly reduces bandwidth use and cuts delivery costs, according to Netsat Express.

Satellites Saving Lives

Africa is benefiting from a number of long-term satellite-based programs that have been monitoring climactic conditions and shifts in Africa. The Famine Early Warning System (FEWS), for example–http://www.fews.net–which is overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has been operating since 1985. FEWS uses U.S. polar orbit meteorological satellites along with several other satellites such as SPOT, the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SEAWIFS) on the Sea Star spacecraft, and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra (EOS AM 1) spacecraft to identify drought and flood zones.

In addition, the trigger events for various tropical diseases such as Rift Valley fever, malaria and even Ebola are becoming better understood as the so-called emerging science of Remotely Sensed Epidemic Surveillance (RSEPIS) technology, which is heavily dependent upon satellite imagery, continues to evolve.

"We are making steady progress when it comes to both identifying possible trigger events and determining the correlations between biomedical and satellite data in general," says Compton Tucker, senior earth scientist and head of the Global Image Mapping and Modeling Studies group of the Biospheric Sciences Branch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Besides Tucker, other RSEPIS experts including his co-worker at Goddard, Kenyan Assaf Anyamba, see the development of this technology as offering great promise, both in Africa and elsewhere. "The leadership in the U.S. government is an important over-arching requirement to drive and sustain this important research. Monitoring climactic modulation of infectious diseases by remote sensing systems offers great potential benefit to the public," wrote another RSEPIS expert, Dr. James Wilson of Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC, recently. "Collaborative efforts between the remote sensing, meteorological, medical and public health communities should be encouraged and maintained to enable realization of this benefit."

The Opportunities Are There

While the African satellite services and equipment market looks more promising everyday, doing business in the region is still a matter of sorting out what seems viable, what really works and what may yield more headaches than profits.

VoIP, for example, is too much of a gray area beyond the realm of private network services, according to DiscoveryTel’s Langreney, who adds that Africa is also four to five years behind South America in terms of rural telephony. Despite recent inroads by several companies, he points to a lack of frequency coordination as one of the biggest obstacles to any large-scale deployment of rural telephony VSATs and fixed wireless systems.

Langreney emphasizes that service providers in Africa are often unprepared for the very rapid shift by their customers from what was planned as an asymmetrical business model to a far more symmetrical model. "Very quickly, the traffic can become symmetrical. This requires a lot of return channel capacity to deal with chat and FTP traffic," says Langreney. "In addition, a lot of extra equipment including modulators and demodulators must be added to hubs to support the often unexpected increase in TDMA channels."

Some big obstacles loom in the African market in general. While most African countries consider satellite-based services vital for their development, they may remain a bit hesitant as they await the creation of a worldwide market for lower cost terminal equipment based on a common standard and the establishment of a greater degree of interoperability of satellite systems.

"In terms of market access, it is important to note that the African market, while not closed to satellite operators, is generally viewed as an environment in which the satellite operators have skimmed the cream by only targeting the profitable corporate customers for their VSAT services, without contributing to the universal service obligations that are imposed on incumbent telecommunications operators," says Toumi.

The emergence of a common standard and true industrywide interoperability may seem closer to reality, but much remains to be done in this regard. Regardless, these issues may not really be the most influential elements or points of resistance in the evolving African satellite equation.

"The biggest obstacle to doing business in Africa, as far as the satellite industry is concerned, is the lack of adequate financing and human resources," says New Skies’ Kabanda. "Funding for new companies and existing companies looking to expand is scarce. In addition, finding experienced satellite professionals on the continent can be difficult."

The opportunity for more aggressive and more innovative public/private sector partnering is there, and now the satellite industry has to decide what to do about it. Although the industry as a whole will not exercise control over its destiny in all instances, there are new organizations such as AVU when it comes to training more technicians, for example.

With the United States planning to spend $15 billion on fighting AIDS in Africa over the next five years, the scope of this program alone suggests a far greater role for the satellite industry in such important areas as telemedicine and distance education. Africa needs more satellite assets for a variety of reasons and the industry needs to keep lowering the bar to ensure that those assets are deployed quickly.

Sidebar

At Mountain View, CA-based interWAVE Communications International Ltd., the door is wide open in Africa for its satellite-based GSM/GPRS network extension technology. One of its most recent projects involves Vodacom Congo in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), one of more than a dozen customers that interWAVE serves in nine countries.

Regarding Vodacom Congo, the plan is to expand service coverage in the Bas-Congo province of DRC, which is accessed via the strategic Atlantic port of Matadi. Like many other countries in Africa, the DRC is lacking when it comes to terrestrial telecom infrastructure. While the total population of the DRC is roughly 60 million people, there are only an estimated 20,000 landline phones in operation.

"Backhaul via satellite is expensive, but it is the only option available in most cases. Our advantage is that we can deploy our wireless solution in the local city, including compression capabilities, which substantially reduces the amount of satellite bandwidth required to do the job right," says Severine Wailly, a spokesperson for interWAVE.

Operators are looking for quick ways to extend their coverage while maintaining a high level of value-added services to their customers and vendors have to activate a wide range of value-added services such as short messaging and voice mail instantly in new service areas. Time is a precious commodity in Africa. Many countries are subjected to torrential rains on a seasonal basis, which can impede the installation and start up process. So for vendors, there is always an emphasis on the need for a rapid deployment of the extended cellular infrastructure, and this often entails seamless integration with already-deployed intelligent networks (IN).

"We typically deploy pockets of network extensions for 3,000 to 5,000 new end users at a time, and this figure can be much higher in some deployment configurations. Additionally, we have developed an interface for IN integration that enables our customers to keep their services offering consistent to their end users across the regions covered," says Wailly.

Peter J. Brown is Via Satellite’s Senior Multimedia & Homeland Security Editor. He lives on Mount Desert Island, ME.