Avanti Communications today announces a significant strategic repositioning from an operator of satellites in geostationary orbit, to a global multi-orbit provider of fully integrated connectivity services and solutions. They cite customer demand as being the driving factor behind the decision.
Kyle Whitehill, CEO of Avanti, said: “The space industry is no longer separate to telecoms. Demand for capacity is becoming increasingly competitive and, as we see elsewhere in the telecoms industry, value will inexorably move down the chain from raw connectivity to services and solutions.
"Rather than investing in new satellites, building and extending our coverage and capacity, we are prioritising strategic partnerships and our service offering so that we can remain agile and responsive to industry trends and the needs of customers – all while maintaining our high performance, reliability, and quality of service.”
Avanti cites three key reasons for the change in direction. Whitehill explains.
“Customers have historically been consumers of capacity. However, we are seeing an evolution away from the original concept and it’s imperative we place the customer at the forefront.
“The second element is there was tension around what does a local global regional satellite operator mean? You're defined by your own satellite network. But if you go and talk to a company like Speedcast for example, they will deliver a solution anywhere in the world because they don’t have a network, they just focus on simply delivering the customer's requirement.
“The third aspect is that this industry has been going since the 1960s. It’s a really established industry, providing a limited range of services in important areas. When I joined the industry five years ago and you met a CEO of a satellite company, you just congratulated them on the latest launch. And then Elon Musk famously said he was going to launch a LEO satellite, and nobody took it seriously. Now suddenly, you're in a situation where people ask about LEO.
We realised that we can't just exist as a small regional GEO satellite operator. So, I think when you add these aspects together, it makes sense to go global. Multi-orbit means the customers don't really care if it's LEO, MEO and GEO.
We are currently deploying managed services in South Africa and Nigeria. So why would that not be providing managed services into all of the customer base across the geographies?”
Africa features heavily on the roadmap for Avanti. Whitehill believes the lack of resilience in South African networks presents an opportunity.
“South Africa has a massive issue with loadshedding, so the networks aren’t resilient. Satellite networks allow us to build in the resilience.
The continent is a key focus for Avanti and they are committed to investing in local education programmes.
Whitehill explains. “In Europe we're all busy trawling through Instagram, Facebook or streaming Netflix. Meanwhile 6 million people in Africa have no access not just to broadband, but to electricity. When you go to a rural village in Africa, and you sit down in the village and think, how do we create an environment that allows more people to reach their full potential? Well, because they're incredibly brave, incredibly entrepreneurial, and very driven, but around key components.
“But providing access isn’t enough, you’ve got to focus on how can I heal that economy? How does the internet help with education, healthcare and security? Because those are things that an African family in a rural community is facing up to every day.
“We have about nine education programmes across Africa. And the real challenge is about funders are nervous about giving the money to governments. So, this one is where the money flows into the NGO locally and flows into the community to get the stuff done, which is great.”
“One is a digital education programme for marginalised girls under 10. It’s incredible to see eight-year-old girls going on to this adaptive learning platform to learn English and Maths. If you go on this platform for an hour a week for the school year, you triple your education.”
