Internet of things is driving demand for satellite communication in SA

UAE-based Yahsat is betting on more connected devices, sensors and monitors as one of the major drivers for its growth in SA as the telecommunications group gears up to launch a new satellite into space. 

While a lot of investment is going into fibre, that is mainly in the large cities and metros. In far-flung areas, satellite is the cheapest, most reliable form of access. Much of this comes down to the unavailability of mobile and fibre internet access in these places.

Rural connectivity 

Operators have long struggled to justify the cost of building expensive infrastructure in sparsely populated and low-income regions, leaving few options — such as satellite — on the table.

The cost to communicate using satellite technology has dropped more than 70% over the past decade, making its use more accessible.

Companies like Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat) see SA as an attractive market as more devices, sensors and monitors — the so-called internet of things, or IoT, — come online, particularly in more far-flung parts of the country.

Yahsat is a telecom operator listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and offers satellite services in more than 150 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, Asia and Australasia. It has a fleet of five satellites, which it says reaches more than 80% of the world’s population. 

“If you are in an area where there’s no connectivity, you need at least the basic connectivity, we can provide broadband,” Sulaiman Al Ali, Yahsat’s chief commercial officer, told Business Day in an interview. 

Local players

Yahsat is playing in a market that has a number of local companies already offering their services. 

Vox, one of SA’s large technology and telecom players, has been investing much of its resources in recent years to connect people in outlying parts of SA. In addition to existing satellite services, the company has focused its fibre rollout in secondary towns in recent years. 

The company says that satellite service is typically used by consumers, along with farms, hotels and schools.

Rival operator Telkom is also a big player in the satellite market. The state-affiliated operator has a number of bank branches, including their ATMs, connected through its satellite service. 

The IoT opportunity

With low data requirements to monitor sensors such as those used to track pipelines, vehicles and livestock, the group has been working on connectivity at speeds as low as 100kbps (kilobits per second). 

“Specifically in SA, we have seen that IoT is a big market,” says Al Ali, explaining that Yahsat’s strategy is premised on “low cost, low data rate and low power”.

“So if you want to monitor livestock, we’ll be having solutions and give you the basic information that you need about location, temperature and other things.”

According to German research firm Statista, revenue in the IoT market is projected to reach $81.7m (about R1.4bn) in 2022, with the largest segment being smart home technologies. Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate of 12.31%, resulting in a market of $146m by 2027.

Despite its wide use in many parts of SA, satellite technology does have major drawbacks, due to the long distances that signals need to travel between satellites in the sky and antenna on the ground. The two major disadvantages have to do with latency (the time is takes for signals to reach their destination) and limited bandwidth (the amount of data that can travel through a signal).

Fibre and mobile are therefore seen as being superior forms of access where available. With limited access to such services in outlying areas, this is the gap that the likes of Yahsat are looking to cover. 

New satellite

Neither Vox nor Telkom subsidiary Openserve have their own satellites, but rather sell services on behalf of satellite operators to their customers. Vox sells on behalf of companies such as France’s Eutelsat.

Liquid Intelligent Technologies, which also provides satellite services in the region, signed a deal with Eutelsat in September to expand its offering to SA, Uganda, South Sudan and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

Yahsat, on the other hand, is working on a new satellite, which Al Ali says will bring faster and cheaper internet access to customers, helping to plug some of drawbacks that the technology currently suffers from. The company has partnerships with operators like Vox and Morclick in the local market, through which it sells its services. 

“We have a new satellite — Thuraya Next Generation — which will have three times more capacity and security. Seventeen new products will be launched from that.

“With the first satellite we launched, we missed the southern part of Africa, so it is not covered by [the current version of] Thuraya. The new satellite will be covering all of that area.”

The company, through its mobile and data solutions businesses Thuraya and YahClick, has been active in Africa for about two decades, targeting consumers, small businesses and large corporates. 

gavazam@businesslive.co.za