Q-KON has connectivity solution for Africa’s Point of Sale headache  

Leading South African telecommunications engineering firm Q-KON, has demonstrated the advantages of using the StarLight Satellite Access Service to deliver reliable connectivity for Point-of-Sale applications and to provide support to service providers who need to address issues that hamper connectivity for PoS devices across Africa.

Q-KON and ConnectNet have worked together to enable secure Point of Sale (PoS) terminal connectivity from the retailer to the financial institutions. Q-KON provides the satellite connectivity via its StarLight Satellite Access Service and ConnectNet routes such traffic via its network architecture to any of the acquiring banks.   

Executive leadership at Q-KON have witnessed an increase in the need for reliable connectivity to facilitate online transactions in key sectors like finance, retail and hospitality. 

To address the need, the Company has developed the StarLight PoS application which is based on always-on, available anywhere connectivity. “This means that connectivity is guaranteed at any location in Sub-Sahara Africa. It is completely independent from local networks and provides a direct link from the customer site to the core banking transaction processing services,” explains Dawie de Wet, CEO of Q-KON. 

The service is flexible and can be applied to provide connectivity to multiple PoS devices installed at large retail outlets or to single PoS devices as applicable to lodges and other remote hospitality operations. 

Benefits of this service include the fact that it is not affected by cellular data congestion, it has no circuit bandwidth constraints and is configured as a priority data service to ensure immediate response and no service degradation. 

“StarLight PoS Service includes standard broadband access and WiFi hotspot services which is ideal for the hospitality sector,” de Wet adds. 

The StarLight point-of-sale solution seamlessly integrates the satellite communication link with the ConnectNet hosted services as well as on-site Wi-Fi hotspot services. This network provides an elegant internet access service to the hospitality industry for administration and reservations, Wi-Fi access for customers and connectivity for point-of-sale devices. 

As part of its go-to-market strategy, Q-KON will sell the solution to its service provider partners in Sub-Sahara Africa who needs to coordinate the installation between the StarLight service and the local financial POS service.  

The solution entails an investment in satellite equipment and a small cost monthly for the small packets of data being passed with POS transaction.  Retailers have peace of mind, that customers don’t have to leave big shopping trolleys astray and the Telco’s can continue focusing on offering quality voice and connectivity to their customers.  

“It is a win-win situation all round. It offers retailers and banks the opportunity to put their POS systems on a different network, with the knowledge that Q-KON has ensured 99.7% connectivity over the last few years,” says de Wet.  

There has already been a positive response to StarLight PoS from large retail enterprises in countries such as Botswana, the first proof of concept were successfully done with one of Botswana’s big retail groups.