Senegal’s postal authority has signed an agreement with satellite communication service provider Spacecom. The deal will help the public company in charge of postal services in Senegal to provide internet services to the country’s rural population.
This is a multi-year contract with La Poste, the Senegalese Post Authority, as part of which Spacecom will migrate La Poste from its current satellite provider to the AMOS-17 satellite but will utilize La Poste’s existing VSAT equipment.
The network communication will be via the AMOS-17’s Ku band beam and will connect La Poste’s VSAT sites to its hub in Dakar.
Spacecom says it will be providing La Poste with over double its current capacity, which will not only serve its 200 remote post offices but will also give the country’s rural population access to internet services and allow La Poste to provide additional services and applications to its rural customers throughout the country.
Spacecom’s AMOS-17 fully digital and advanced high throughput satellite (HTS) supports a variety of broadcast, broadband and data services from its 17˚E orbital slot. The satellite’s capabilities allow maximal service architecture flexibility and higher throughput at reduced operational costs, says Spacecom.
La Poste has deployed its own satellite network all over Senegal, with 200 remote sites operating with Eutelsat in Ku-Band from 2007. La Poste now plans to increase the number of its remote sites and will provide additional applications and content to the rural population in Senegal directly from post offices.
A number of other satellite projects relating to internet connectivity are said to be under consideration by La Poste.