March 10, 2015

O3b Networks announced a multi-year agreement to provide trunking services to Presta Bist, one of Chad’s leading Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Pay TV operator. Under the agreement, Presta Bist will use O3b as their backhaul provider from Chad to the internet.

Presta Bist is the first customer from the Sahel countries (Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Central African Republic) to sign up with O3b’s service, and the 10th contracted client in Africa since its launch in 2014. With more deals in the pipeline, O3b is rapidly emerging as one of the leading providers of satellite connectivity in the region and on the continent.

The O3bTrunk product line delivers comparable latencies to long haul fiber, with round-trip times under 150 milliseconds and throughput up to 1.6 Gbps. The result is high quality voice and video that cannot be achieved by traditional geostationary (GEO) satellite providers. Utilizing the O3b network will allow Presta Bist to provide a triple play solution of VOIP, Internet and TV (VOD) over broadband wireless network to its consumer subscribers, while also better addressing corporate customer needs.

Chad, with a population of 11 million people, is a rapidly growing market which has suffered from high latency and a lack of bandwidth availability. This has been due to low fiber availability, as well as the high cost and high latency performance of traditional GEO connectivity.

The use of O3b satellites, which are closer to the earth than conventional GEO satellites, reduces latency, enables cloud computing, and improves voice and video quality for the user. O3b’s next generation IP trunking solution boosts existing link capacities to rival the affordability and latency of fiber.

Moussa Radjab, CEO of Presta Bist said:

“This is a great step forward for internet access in Chad. Presta Bist is proud to bring O3b's high throughput and low latency connectivity to our customers across the country. The broadband services we will now be able to offer are far superior to anything possible using current fiber connections or GEO satellites."

Omar Trujillo, VP Africa and Latin America of O3b said:

“The Sahel countries are a high priority for O3b, and Presta Bist is an ideal company to be the initial adopter for O3b’s impactful technology in the region. The countries of Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, as well as the Central African Republic are landlocked, with erratic terrestrial fiber connections dependent on neighboring countries.  With populations who have a rapidly growing need for bandwidth, O3b’s Fiber in the Sky solution is a perfect fit.”