Thaicom’s Africom has become an established player in connecting the continent by providing the African entities with C-band capacity, according to the Thai company
In January this year, Thaicom began a dedicated service to Africa with Africom-1, which operates orbitally at 78.5° E, specifically providing broadcasters and Internet and telecommunications service providers with end-to-end satellite communication services over high-power C-band beams.
Pradeep Unni, CMO of Thaicom, told CAF that Thaicom was the first in Asia to offer Ku-band connections and to deliver digital direct-to-home broadcasting.
He added that it is responsible for Ipstar, the world’s first Internet-enabled satellite, delivering broadband and mobile backhaul services to telecommunications enterprises across Asia. With the service provided by Africom-1, Thaicom is positioned to innovate a new era of information and entertainment services in the continent — catering to Africa’s better educated, more affluent people, and its increasingly well-financed businesses, the executive V-P said.
Explaining the structure underpinning Thaicom’s commitment to Africa, Unni said that the dedicated satellite service is managed by a distinct commercial entity Africom, which is responsible for the revenue streams as well as the service obligations associated with Africom-1.
He also talked about the company’s experience in handling of dynamic Asian economies over the last two decades bears well on the African continent, where patterns of growth are similar — particularly, with respect to the extension of government services, the development of educational initiatives and the extension of access into rural communities.
A key parallel observed by Unni was the prevalence of low-to-medium income economic areas, which have been historically underserved, where the demand for access to broadcasting and telecommunications networks is great. These are the true emerging markets of Africa and the core target areas for Thaicom, he noted.
According to Unni, the affordable quality of service is a key factor in the success of Africom.
“The provision of quality — in telecommunications as in broadcasting — is often expensive, and can be prohibitively costly. Africom opens up the possibility of lower the cost of quality by working with an array of partners in Africa and the Middle East, to create a network of hubs, which act in concert to alleviate financial burdens by allowing local uplink connections to the satellite.”
However, Africom is currently directly focused on communications. The company supports mobile backhaul services in Africa, with the satellite connecting base stations and extending coverage across the continent. It also enables last-mile connectivity for Internet access, using very small aperture terminals (VSATs), in remotely-located residential and industrial areas.
