Through the deal, Gateway Communications has purchased an additional three iDirect Universal Satellite Hubs to meet the growing demand for satellite communications in Africa. iDirect specializes in satellite-based IP communications technology. What this will result is is that iDirect's Evolution system will enable Gateway Communications to capitalize on growing demand for its services across Africa's banking, oil and gas and corporate enterprise markets. Built on the DVB-S2 standard and featuring Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) capabilities, Evolution delivers dramatic gains in bandwidth efficiency, and provides the flexibility to offer high levels of service for advanced applications on which businesses rely. Currently, more than 1,200 multi-national corporations operating in Africa depend on Gateway to deliver business critical information between headquarters, branch offices and remote locations.
"Gateway Communications needed the most reliable platform to meet the rigorous demands of our African business customers. With iDirect's Evolution system we are able to deliver world-class bandwidth efficiency to our customers and expand our reach across a diverse and growing range of vertical markets in Africa," said Chris Young Chief Technology Officer, Gateway Communications.
"Gateway Communications is the first satellite hub operator in Africa and a long time, strategic iDirect partner. Their decision to launch an expansive DVB-S2 network demonstrates the magnitude of business demand for satellite communications and the strength of Gateway's reputation for reliability and customer support," stated Rash Jhanjee Regional Vice President for Middle East and Africa, iDirect.
Extensive tests show that the Evolution product line can deliver a 30 percent improvement in bandwidth efficiency over DVB-S systems. An additional gain of 50 percent is possible through ACM, an advanced feature of the DVB-S2 standard which iDirect has built into its Evolution product line. These dramatic gains open new opportunities for service providers to improve support for a range of IP applications, including virtual private networks (VPN), voice over IP (VoIP), videoconferencing, enterprise networks, point of sale, SCADA, telemetry, multimedia and Internet cafes.