Thaicom Public Company Limited, one of Asia’s leading satellite operators and provider of integrated satellite communications services, announced an agreement with iSAT Africa Ltd FZC. (iSAT), a leading African telecommunications provider and a subsidiary of Wananchi Group Holdings, to provide iSAT’s key customer in East Africa with fully managed satellite telecommunications services including satellite backup of its fiber network.
Under the agreement, Thaicom will provide Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity via the THAICOM 6 satellite in the case of fiber network outages. The full-time, managed service will enable iSAT Africa to provide their client with a fully redundant and highly available backup solution for the provision of uninterrupted broadband services.
“We have seen an increase in the need for reliable and cost-effective satellite communications in Africa,” said (Nile) Suwansiri, Chief Commercial Officer with Thaicom. “Therefore, we intend to continue expanding our reach and providing our clients with the best possible solution for their business requirements. Thaicom has many years of experience in providing leading telecom operators across Asia with premium cellular and internet backhaul. Our African customers can now benefit from Thaicom’s experience in providing managed network backhaul services as well.”
Munish Sharma, Chief Operating Officer with iSAT Africa said, “We are pleased to partner with Thaicom for yet another solution to provide better services to our customers. ISAT is at the forefront of innovation, while offering flexible managed services across Africa and other parts of the world in the field of VSAT, Broadcasting, Voice, GSM Backhaul and Fiber. Data demand throughout the world is being driven by the increased popularity of connected devices—and Africa is going in the same direction. Satellite services are playing a key role in the development.”
He further added, “Satellite is ideal to extend iSAT’s fiber network via Internet Protocol in Africa to places that are not connected to terrestrial networks. iSAT’s fiber networks cover Africa, Europe, Asia and America. Our collaboration with Thaicom will assist to fulfil the growing demand and offer data services by way of a resilient fiber network while maintaining high standards of Quality of Service (QoS).”
The managed internet backbone and related services provided by Thaicom are based on a point-to-point satellite link between Thaicom’s designated teleport and our customer’s remote site, thus providing uninterrupted access to the network.
