Kacific s First Operational Service - Connecting Rural Vanuatu to the World

Vanuatu, 20 July 2016 - released by Kacific Broadband Satellites - Kacific today announced its first operational service, a high-speed broadband internet connection into the rural Lambubu area on Malekula Island in Vanuatu.

The service, which is based at Lambubu Primary School, is providing a broadband internet connection at speeds of up to 17 Mbps delivered by satellite. A small VSAT terminal has been installed to receive the signal, and all villagers can now get the benefit of high speed internet connectivity. A local college was also recently connected, and several further schools and healthcare centres will be connected over the next few weeks.

(c) Kacific

The installation is the result of a joint project between the Vanuatu government, local ISP Telsat and Kacific.

The broadband connectivity from Kacific is a major step in our work to provide universal internet access to the people of Vanuatu, said Dalsie Baniala, head of the Telecommunications & Radiocommunications Regulator (TRR).

The computer lab at Lambubu School will in future develop into a government service centre, providing internet and educational and health services to the wider community. This connectivity will provide previously unheard of educational opportunities for the children, as well as improving health outcomes for all villagers.

I am very excited to see our first service in operation, said Christian Patouraux, CEO of Kacific.

The immediate need in Vanuatu is education and healthcare, but beyond this, affordable broadband internet enables more effective emergency planning and disaster recovery programmes. Broadband will open up opportunities to government to provide important services to regions of Vanuatu that would otherwise be under-served. The connectivity will also create opportunities for people in rural Vanuatu to engage in e-commerce, which can subsequently increase the wealth of communities.

Mr Patouraux says that the deployment on Vanuatu is proof of the vision that started the company back in 2013.

We wanted to create a frugal service that uses proven technology. We've designed it as a nimble, easy to deploy service that can adapt to different circumstances.

If we provide good network quality at a price that people can afford, then demand increases dramatically. We've had a very strong response to our service, not just from islands around the Pacific, but far beyond, from South America to Africa.

Kacific now has over US$365 million of bandwidth in signed commitments from companies and governments in nations throughout the Pacific and south east Asia.

The service is powered using the Newtec Dialog multiservice VSAT platform from Newtec, a specialist in designing, developing and manufacturing equipment and technologies for satellite communications (read more about the partnership here) and utilises a teleport from satellite and terrestrial installation company Av-Comm to provide connectivity, hosting and uplink services.

Note: right photo: IP Satellite Modem from Newtec.

Learn more about the Newtec Dialog multiservice VSAT platform including hubs and modems.

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LINK:	http://www.newtec.eu/article/release/connecting-rural-vanuatu...
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