Pan-African network operator Paratus Group has announced a multi-year agreement with global telecommunications provider OneWeb to build a gateway in Luanda, Angola. It will be operational in the second half of 2023.
The new gateway will provide low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite services to several countries in the region and will facilitate the provision of high-speed, low-latency connectivity to businesses, government, schools, clinics, and hospitals in under-serviced areas.
The teleport will consist of 16 antennas and a network hosting facility, linking to OneWeb’s LEO infrastructure and thereby connecting Africa to the world and the world to Africa.
This agreement, combined with the recent launch of the Paratus fibre connection to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the inauguration of the Paratus Group’s data centres in Zambia and Namibia, and coverage in all of the Angolan provinces, means that Paratus has the requisite infrastructure to provide a highly sophisticated network hub in Angola and one that allows for expansion beyond its borders.
Chief Technical Officer of Paratus Group, Rolf Mendelsohn describes this as “another giant step in realizing our plan to use Angola as a communications hub for the region”.
According to the Data Centre Dynamics website, Paratus Angola operates two data centres on its campus. Data Center 1, with a capacity for more than 1,500 servers and Data Center 2, with a capacity for more than 7,000 servers. Data Centre 1 currently has a 100% occupancy.
This is the first of several planned OneWeb gateways in Africa.