Facebook, Eutelsat to Build High Throughput Satellite System for Africa

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Facebook, Eutelsat to Build High Throughput Satellite System for Africa

By CircleID Reporter
October 05, 2015, 6:11 pm PDT Views: 4,728 Add Comment

Eutelsat Communications and Facebook announced today their partnership on a new initiative that will leverage satellite technologies to get more Africans online. “Under a multi-year agreement with Spacecom, the two companies will utilize the entire broadband payload on the future AMOS-6 satellite and will build a dedicated system comprising satellite capacity, gateways and terminals,” according to the official announcement.

Scheduled for start of service in the second half of 2016, the Ka-band payload on the AMOS-6 geostationary satellite is configured with high gain spot beams covering large parts of West, East and Southern Africa. The companies say that the capacity is optimized for community and Direct-to-User Internet access using affordable, off-the-shelf customer equipment. The capacity will be shared between Eutelsat and Facebook.

By CircleID Reporter

CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.

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