By Yanniv Betito, vice president for EMEA. Telesat.
There are over 12,000 satellites currently in orbit and more pending. While only a select number of countries can afford to launch and deploy their own, the rest of the world still needs the navigation, communication, Earth observation and defence intelligence capabilities that satellites enable. Having to rely on another country for access to those essentials of modern life can cause any nation some discomfort about ownership of the resources on which its well-being depends.
That does not mean every country that cannot launch its own satellites must rely on critical resources beyond its control. Traditionally, ‘sovereign’ has been regarded as having complete autonomy over assets. But telecommunication works a bit differently. A nation can ‘own’ a communications asset virtually in a way that ensures it can access the required amount of capacity and control the way its traffic is routed and managed.
This option is new and presents African nations building out infrastructure to support their emerging economies with a unique opportunity to adopt a smarter, efficient and economically sustainable path to fulfilling their true communications requirements, including the desire for sovereignty.
Leveraging a regional model
There are different approaches to consider. Some countries may choose and can afford to pursue an independent strategy that exclusively serves their own internal needs. However, as the continent’s economy continues developing, emerging sub-regions comprised of nearby African nations present another option for trusted neighbors to address shared needs. In these areas of influence, one country could assume the responsibility of aggregating satellite communications requirements for the region while, if relevant, developing additional local hubs for specific countries requiring such capabilities.
For example, nations currently at the forefront – particularly those exercising significant economic influence within their respective sub-regions – might take the lead in setting up their own sovereign systems which could then guide a regional approach.
This model has already shown to be effective with Dubai’s Internet City, a digital hub created in the early 2000s. By building out physical infrastructure and implementing favorable tax policies, Dubai was able to attract aggressive telco expansion. That in turn drove increasing demand, which led to it becoming a major interconnection and transit hub handling data flows between Africa, Asia and Europe. While Dubai certainly benefitted economically, this advancement also drove huge improvements in latency and cost reductions that profited the entire region, accelerated trade, and eased the path for other African countries to create their own tech hubs.
Satellite as a means of data sovereignty
A new era of satellite connectivity now presents the next wave of opportunity, while ensuring that any country can enjoy sovereign communications access to preserve and protect its interests. First and foremost is network and data security. Landing satellite traffic in a country or a closely allied region will ensure it stays there.
Any commercial entities in the region would get a connection point in the country where economic output is created. Governmental entities will also ensure in-country connections that localise defence, intelligence, public health and other critical data.
Stable, reliable connectivity will accelerate growth and raise national standards of living. For domestic infrastructure like banking systems, oil and gas, mining and more to thrive, businesses and governments need to be confident that communications are resilient enough to engender development as well as sustain operations in the face of manmade or natural disasters.
Ensuring the right approach
As African national, regional and business leaders consider how best to adopt new satellite capabilities, they should carefully consider the way in which they procure access.
The first step is to assess the type of connectivity that is actually needed. One option is using a fully managed service delivered through a satellite operator that offers pre-defined packages directly to end users. In this model, the allocation of satellite capacity and the routing of traffic are not explicitly provided and are generally delivered on a best effort basis.
As a result, an entity such as a telecom operator or a business enterprise has limited visibility and control over how the service is delivered. While this approach may be adequate for certain use cases, particularly in business-to-consumer contexts, it is often insufficient for more demanding requirements, such as those of telecom operators or business-to-business services.
A second option is leasing satellite communications infrastructure through a virtual payload. With this approach, the government or enterprise manages their dedicated payload and the terrestrial hub that can be installed in country, maintaining sovereign control over higher-level telecommunication details like how much capacity to assign to sets of users, what service level to provide them and where the traffic is routed.
This enables governments or large commercial entities to configure their satellite network traffic routes and points of interconnect to send data wherever necessary. For instance, a route could be set to land traffic in one location instead of another or avoid certain traffic nodes in hostile regions.
Data protection is of course a paramount consideration. In some models, a satellite operator controls the encryption of all data going through its network. For entities wanting further control, a model that enables them to own the encryption key for their own data will provide an extra layer of sovereignty.
These and more factors must be carefully weighed, as they will guide a country’s or region’s connectivity strategy for years. At the emergence of a new era of African development, it’s a consequential decision. Done well, African nations can leverage modern communications technology to be active participants in the global economy and still preserve sovereignty over the resources that will get them there.
