Page 88 - SAMENA Trends - May-June 2022

SATELLITE UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

African Satellite Soars

Over 40% Yearly Growth

Liquid Telecom Satellite Services (LTSS)
is expecting to see strong revenue growth
in 2022, thanks in particular to strong
demand for connectivity in Africa, CEO
Scott Mumford told Via Satellite. LTSS
grew by 25% in 2021 and that speed is
accelerating year-on-year, according to
Mumford. The 2022 forecast could be over
40% revenue growth, based purely on orders
already in the pipeline. This is because
the satellite cellular backhaul market is
“growing, growing, growing,” thanks to a
transformation in the understanding and
the mindset of satellite services in Africa
over the last three years, said Mumford.
While selling services into Africa was
always tough, things are starting to change.
Once satellite’s original reputation for being
slow, expensive and foreign to Africa was
banished, people began to see the positives
and those doing the marketing for the
industry say they have turned a corner. “We
are seeing huge demand across Africa. We
are adding services into 10 new countries,
said Mumford. “We have added the whole
of West Africa into our footprint. We
actually lit up another spot beam recently, internet penetration and GDP growth is a developing maturity and Liquid Telecom
which was a new beam over a new region. extremely well-documented and evidence installed 200 terminals in the country late in
It has been strong. Satellite will continue based,” said Mumford. This makes it 2021. Southern Africa and West Africa have
to gain momentum and market share.” difficult for service providers to set up a seen increased demand. Now markets
In recent years deals between TIM and company in any country, which makes it which were traditionally outside of LTSS’s
Eutelsat in 2020 and AT&T and OneWeb in difficult for them to start offering useful footprint, such as the Central African
2021 changed the mindset towards how support to indigenous businesses and Republic, Cameroon, Niger and Mali, are
satellite works. “Telecoms understands communities and improving the gross moving too. “We are pumping capacity into
that the world is large and that terrestrial domestic output of that nation. “Some of those markets with local providers who are
mechanisms can be very good, but they those license requirements are extremely desperate to get access to these services,”
can be very expensive and time consuming arduous,” said Mumford. In one West Mumford said. “With some operators, we
to deploy. They are very inflexible by nature. African nation, for example, the satellite are struggling to find enough capacity for
As we move to cloud-based and service- provider is being asked to prove that Earth us to be able to take and keep growing.”
based ways of working, satellite is a critical stations are not dangerous. Providing the However, Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) won’t be
element of that provision,” said Mumford. relevant FCC/ITU and antenna performance the gamechanger for the industry. Though
In fact, it’s not a matter of choice, Africa data to disprove a negative is a thankless latency is important for certain applications
has to adopt it, according to the satellite task and involves talking to officials who it’s not universally critical. Don’t expect a
CEO. People expect ubiquitous service, still believe in non-ionizing radiation mass migration from other technologies to
the African continent is vast and the only effects. “I can’t believe we are still having LEO. “We won’t suddenly see 10 million new
way to cover that is to embrace satellite. that type of conversation in 2022, but that terminals active in Africa in three years’
The technologies have evolved hugely is an example of some of the hoops we still time,” said Mumford. LTSS is examining
over the last five years, as have the levels have to jump through. They need to make how to orchestrate service across multiple
of service. Regulation is the main obstacle it easier for us to get those services into systems and then tie that into its terrestrial
holding it back. “There are so many rules countries,” said Mumford. Corruption and infrastructure. “It’s all about the service, not
and regulations. The correlation between officialdom aside, Zimbabwe has displayed the delivery technology,” said Mumford.

88 MAY-JUNE 2022