Fiber outages push up satellite business in West Africa

Gateway Communications has solidified its satellite communications business, taking advantage of erratic outages in land-based networks and the high cost of fiber connectivity in central and West Africa.

Gateway, one of the largest satellite companies in the region, has within the last month signed deals with ISPs and telecom operators in Guinea, Benin, Senegal, Chad, Niger and Ivory Coast, showing that Africa is still relying on satellite for communications.

Sat 3 fiber optic cable serves west Africa coast and some landlocked countries in central and north Africa but erratic outages have led to increased capacity on satellite.

"The demand for capacity is growing fast in Africa, and countries such as Senegal and Guinea have burgeoning telecommunication markets that are becoming increasingly vibrant," said Mike van den Bergh, CEO of Gateway Communications.

In Guinea, Gateway is working with Intercel, providing inbound and outbound voice and cellular backhaul services. Gateway already has built a national backbone of cellular links, connecting five major cities via cellular backhaul.

"Intercel Guinea required a provider with a depth of technical expertise that could provide the support we've come to know and trust throughout our long-term relationship with Gateway," said Djibril Tobe, Intercel CEO.

Gateway has also partnered with ETI SA, Guinea's leading ISP, using WiMAX and ADSL and providing Internet capacity from Conakry, the capital, to Europe via satellite.

In Senegal, Gateway is working with Sonatel to provide international voice services for its subscriber base. Sonatel is part of the France Telecom group and holds about 70% market share.

In Nigeria, Gateway's business arm has partnered with Helios Towers Nigeria (HTN) to provide co-location and managed services facilities to enable Gateway serve multinational corporations in the region.

Helios is an infrastructure provider with over 1,000 sites in Nigeria and will provide end-to-end co-location services to Gateway Business Nigeria, and facilitate provision affordable national, regional and international connectivity services on the continent.

"We have been working on the continent for more than 15 years; building a pan African communications network; working with Helios in Nigeria is part of our strategy to provide world class broadband Internet services for Africa's leading businesses," said Guy Clarke, Managing Director of Gateway Business Nigeria.

Gateway operates in 40 African countries and has an ambitious plan of building an MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) service that will cover every city. It has already rolled out broadband services in some cities and is now working on guaranteed up times that will compete with fiber optic cables.