‘AMOS-5 strengthens our position in Africa’s satellite industry’
Spacecom’s
Eyal Copitt speaks with SEGUN ORUAME, IT EDGE NEWS, on the company’s
new satellite with footprint over Africa and its game plan to
increase its stakes in the continent’s connectivity market.
Congratulations
on the successful launch of the AMOS-5 satellite. How extensive is
the coverage of the AMOS-5 satellite in terms of footprint across
Africa; which African countries or sub-regions (East, West, North,
South) will benefit from AMOS-5 pan-African C-band and Ku-band
payload?
Spacecom’s AMOS-5 satellite, located at the 17°E orbital position,
offers a pan-African C-band beam, connecting Europe and the Middle
East alongside three Ku-band regional beams. It covers every point
in Sub-Saharan Africa from East to West and North to South. The
C-band completely blankets all of Africa with its powerful
transponders enabling connectivity to Europe and Middle East while
our Ku-bands target the various regions of French-speaking Africa,
Southern Africa and Central Africa. Its 14x72 MHz and 4x36 MHz
C-band transponders combined with 18x72 MHz Ku transponders enable
it to be a prime carrier of African traffic in the years to come in
both broadcast and data services.
Would the AMOS-5 satellite be merely consolidating on an
established market presence on the African continent or would it be
the first time that Spacecom will be truly focusing on delivering
satellite backbone connectivity to the African market?
Spacecom has a solid presence in Africa with a team of 10
experienced regional sales managers covering the continent. The
addition of AMOS-5 fulfills further growth of Spacecom’s vision to
become an emerging multi-regional satellite operator. The satellite
offers high-powered capacity in C and Ku band to the entire African
continent as well as superb connectivity to Europe and the Middle
East, enabling our clients to bring their services to more than one
area. This added value proposition strengthens our position within
the satellite industry. That being said, thanks to our experience
working in emerging markets, our teams have a deep understanding of
what it takes to make successful deals and provide superior service.
With a larger fleet, we can offer more services and support our
customers with more capacity to assist their growth. Our teams have
created a business model based on bringing added value and top line
practices to these markets. We will be working diligently to
continue this as we expand further throughout all of Africa.
Unlike
say 10 years ago, Africa appears to be experiencing a bandwidth or
backbone connectivity surge with the commercial launch of several
submarine cables and communication satellites focusing on the market
here, where does that place AMOS-5 and Spacecom as a result of more
fiery competition?
We actually believe that more fiber is good for our business in
Africa. As fiber expands in Africa, business and consumers will
realize that new services, especially with broadband Internet,
benefit them and will seek out the best operators. This will bring
more
business to AMOS-5 and the satellite sector. The rural and outlying
areas of Africa will not find fiber cost-effective and will find
that
satellite services are competitive having both fast time to market
and easy deployment. Thus, as customers in these regions want more
content, more applications and more services they will turn to
telecom and broadcast operators who utilize satellite. With the
strength of AMOS-5's beams, the satellite will be a player in the
African communications scene for the future and will offer its
services to throughout the entire continent.
Nigeria’s replacement satellite, Nigcomsat 1R, is billed for
launch this month and is expected to be commercially operational
from the second quarter of 2012, is this not likely to erase the
market potential or prospect for AMOS-5 and Spacecom?
Spacecom already operates our satellites at the 4°W position where
there is a great deal of competition. Nicomsat is a relatively small
regional satellite and the market is growing, thus we believe that
the market will generate business for all of us operating satellites
over Africa. We have been successful over the emerging Central and
Eastern European markets and have trained our teams to understand
local markets and to act leanly and smartly to win and maintain
business. In Africa, we welcome competition because it simply makes
us better and enables us to provide the best services and reaction
times.
What specifically is AMOS-5 bringing to the African market in
terms of products and services; what are its unique selling points?
The AMOS-5 was originally planned to cover Africa. Its beams were
designed to cover the continent's main cities and business areas
with high EIRP. Our high power pan-African C-band beam and three
Ku-band beams completely cover Africa and provide connectivity to
Europe and the Middle East. AMOS-5 is an attractive and powerful
source of capacity for a variety of African and African-related
businesses, including broadcasters, telcos, cellular operators,
governments and others. With AMOS-5 one can expand and cover the
whole continent with one hop. With its excellent look angle,
Spacecom’s AMOS-5 offers a variety of satcom services, including:
• VSAT communications and broadband Internet
• Telephony services
• Data trunking
• Cellular backhaul
• Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV broadcasting
• Video distribution
Who
are your local partners in Africa and how do customers get assurance
of a service support critical to realtime operations in most of
endpoints where your services will be utilized?
In Africa, we are working with numerous experienced agencies from
the satellite sector. We are partnering with groups operating
teleports across Africa and Europe who provide services and VNOs
over AMOS-5. Spacecom provides 24x7 customer support from our Ground
Control Center in Israel. Every support call is handled with utmost
attention. We consider service and support a pillar of our strategy.
Kindly share with our readers a brief resume of Spacecom and when
it started focusing on Africa and where its key base is currently
located? Simply put, describe your operations in Africa so far?
Africa had been in Spacecom’s sights for some time. In 2006, our
Board of Directors decided that the communications market in Africa
was evolving, so AMOS coverage for the continent made strategic
sense. With a growing population, the ability to capture more
infrastructure investments leading to a modernization of
communications platforms and its attractiveness for business, the
continent represents an important element of our business strategy.
We are also building a complete sales and support structure in major
markets in the East, West, and Southern Africa. Alongside the AMOS-5
at 17°E, Spacecom operates the AMOS-2 and AMOS-3 satellites,
co-located at 4°W. These provide high quality broadcast and
communications services in Europe, the Middle East and the U.S. East
Coast to direct-to-home (DTH) and direct broadcast satellite (DBS)
operators, ISPs, telecom operators, network integrators and
government agencies. Following the successful launch of AMOS-5,
Spacecom has become an emerging multi-regional satellite
operator. The company is currently planning the launch of AMOS-4 in
2012 over Russia and Asia, and AMOS-6 in 2014 over Europe and the
Middle East including a new Ka spot beam technology for broadband
services in Africa and the CEE region.
What
does the future hold for satellite services in the increasingly
sophisticated African market; will the demand for satellite go up or
come down in the face of increasing presence of submarine and
terrestrial connectivity infrastructures?
Spacecom sees satellite services in Africa as a growth market. With
increasing sophistication and game changers, especially the addition
of new fiber, the right conditions are being created for the
acceleration of communications services and businesses to serve the
continent. With more fiber, business and consumers will seek better
communications services – especially Internet – and this will bring
more business to the satellite sector. More fiber in Africa means
that more content can be brought to the continent and can be locally
elaborated and distributed. This enables a greater focus on the
regional and local level for programming and thus deepens local
communications business operations. We believe that this will speed
up the trend toward creating local hubs in Africa. These local hubs
enhance communications speeds and quality, open broadband Internet
for mass consumption and lower the barriers for enterprises to add
Internet services. With more local hubs, telcos and providers will
seek improved quality and reach and look for satellites, such as the
AMOS-5 to bring these services to various regions. The power of the
AMOS-5 places it at the center of the communications landscape for
years to come and by supplying fast and reliable service. Overall,
primarily due to costs and issues of
technical service to fiber, satellites will be the solution of
choice for reaching rural areas and the large swaths of non-urban
areas in Africa.
