SatSoHoAfrica

In order to meet the specific SoHo community needs, SatADSL develops a set of “pay as you go” services that are volume-based, do not require monthly subscription and are not subject to any volume reset, which is instead enforced in the (B2B) Business2Business high end professional services already provided by SatADSL (for more info see SatFinAfrica project web page)

 

SatSoHoAfrica  develops and validates a set of enhancements and applications which allow SatADSL to target an addressable market of the order of 50,000 terminals in the time frame 2015-2020.  The proposed activities include the adaptation and integration of management features enabling an effective and low cost “pay as you go” modality in presence of a large number of users and terminals, covering accounting, fault monitoring and help desk, customizable front end adaptable to the branding of the distributor, and the inclusion of a protected transmission modality to accommodate security type applications (such as alarms, useful to remote farmers that are often assaulted by burglars).

 

The SoHo services have to be sold via several local African distributors who re-sell the service to their final SoHo customers, on behalf of SatADSL as currently already done in the offered B2B services.

 

Beside the Ku-band Newtec Sat3Play platform already used by SatADSL, the proposed project integrates and validates a Ka-band Sat3Play platform using the multi-beam payload of Avanti HYLAS 2 deployed over Sub-Saharan Africa.

One of the major critical issue for the adoption by the users of Internet services in Africa is the pricing policy, which has to be affordable for the users, and their investment risk (CAPEX) to be borne for the procurement of the satellite equipment and associated installation services.

 

The main aim of the SatSoHoAfrica project is to offer very competitive pricing policies, thanks to the usage of Ka-band technology, to the pay-as-you-go schemes and to the Automatic Payment Services, and at the same time to provide free-of-charge pilot demonstrations to convince a significant pool of users about the reliability, performances and ease-of-use of the offered service.

The project is covering in a first step (five months period) the specification of the User and System Requirements, the architecture design and the interfaces development.

 

In a second step, lasting about three months, field validations are carried out with local distributors, with a total of 10 terminals located nearby their premises.

 

These Proof-of-Concepts and on-the-field validation activities have to be finalised before launching the third step consisting in an eight months pilot phase with end-customers. The SoHo pilots involve 5 SatADSL Distributors with a total of up to 30 installed terminals. Their objectives are to validate the SoHo services developed, in an operational environment, over a long period and with a number of operational sites large enough to validate the service in an operational-like scenario (e.g. traffic congestion and rain).

 

A key objective is also to collect end-users feedback and allow for fine-tuning of the services before launching the commercial roll-out stage.

The pilot activities are progressing with excellent results and users’ satisfaction (about 80 users have already subscribed commercially to the services) and they are expected to be completed in Aug2015.

The prime contractor is working on a CCN (about 1MEUR cost / 500 kEUR price) to develop and pilot a tailored solution of the SoHo service with the WiFi Hot-Spot features for education in about 30 schools in Ghana. The proposal is expected to be submitted in July 2015.

The final review of the original project activities (i.e. not including the CCN) is planned by end August 2015.