Satellite Internet in Sao Tome and Principe

Satellite Internet Access Service

The island nations of Sao Tome and Principe are located in the Gulf of Guinea. The islands feature two archipelagos around the main islands, off the north western coast of Gabon. The country has a population of just under 200,000, and is the second smallest African country. The economy is based on plantation agriculture with cocoa representing 95% of its agricultural exports. The country also produces other crops such as copra, palm kernels and coffee. As most food is imported, the government is looking to develop its domestic food production.

Opportunities in Multiple Industries

Diversification in the Sao Tome and Principe economy is necessary, due to its reliance upon agriculture. The islands’ stunning scenery has great potential to attract tourism and the government is in the process of developing its infrastructure to grow the tourism opportunity. In addition, petroleum exploration is an emerging sector. An agreement for exploration has been signed with Nigeria and the development of the industry is underway as well as some development in the banking sector.

The government of Sao Tome and Principe is under no illusion that ICTs are a critical tool for development and is looking at ways in which it can improve broadband penetration to facilitate Internet access across the islands. Being an island nation has been a challenge for Sao Tome and Principe in terms of accessing the Internet as it is geographically isolated. The country does now have access to bandwidth via the ACE submarine cable, but the price of connectivity is still high and efforts need to be made to bring costs down in order to create all-important digital inclusion. The creation of a Universal Access Fund in 2013 has helped the situation, but huge gaps in connectivity still exist. There is high use of mobile phones on the islands and a keenness to establish mobile banking services as fixed line access is not widespread. Therefore, Mobile Network Operators need help to expand into areas that are not connected. At present, across the islands, 28% of the population is connected to the Internet. This could be greatly improved using satellite connectivity provided by BusinessCom Networks.

VSAT Solutions in Sao Tome & Principe

Using VSAT-based solutions, BusinessCom can help to establish long sought-after Universal Access for users across the country. VSAT networks are highly versatile, accommodating a wealth of applications for a wide range of sectors including oil and gas, tourism, agriculture, banking and cellular backhaul for mobile voice and data services and m-banking. The beauty of VSAT is that nothing is required apart from the terminal itself and a clear line-of-sight to the satellite, meaning that geography and topography have no impact on the service whatsoever and it may be deployed anywhere at all. This means that connectivity can be brought to remote areas, tiny islands, remote petroleum sites and exploration sites and the communities for whom digital inclusion has always been a problem due to their location. BusinessCom has vast experience of delivering this type of connectivity to Africa and can provide technicians on Sao Tome and Principe to deliver the very best standard of installation. BusinessCom will then support and assist you to ensure that users on Sao Tome and Principe can get the very most out of their VSAT network.