With countryside broadband availability in sub-Saharan Africa patchy at best and many people still without access to faster 3G signals, Skywire Technologies is one of the satellite Internet service providers bringing broadband to the continents most remote areas
Skywire co-director, Jaco Visagie, said that the most effective solution to bridge the gap and to provide connectivity to such hard-to-reach rural places is via satellite.
“Most people are under the misconception that satellite Internet is completely unaffordable, but thanks to a recent influx of satellite Internet service providers into South Africa, it has become much more cost-effective,” said Visagie, who went on to speak about his company's own pay-per-use offering.
“SkySat provides affordable, uninterrupted, reliable, high-performance broadband Internet and voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) services to consumers as well as small businesses, and it works anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Visagie added that satellite broadband held many advantages.
“It is quick to deploy anywhere, there are no last mile connectivity limitations as there is with ADSL, and there is also no risk of cable theft," he said.
Visagie added that satellite was particularly beneficial for farming communities, game lodges, rural schools, libraries, health clinics, remote construction sites and road maintenance site offices.
