Super Wide Network Satellite

NEPAD council has signed an agreement with SWANSAT Holding in which the Council will support promote the SWANSAT project. When the project is complete in 2015, SWANSAT pledges to offer subsidized broadband satellite bandwidth to Africa at a cost of 1Euro/per month for 2MB/s.

A SWANSAT awareness workshop will be convened at ICT Africa 2008 to review the project.

 SWANSAT is a constellation of up to twelve telecommunications satellites that will operate the first commercial use of the Wband for delivery of two-way broadband Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services worldwide. Using 500,000 watts of broadcast power, SWANSAT will operate from geosynchronous orbit (GSO) as a hybrid Broadcast Satellite Service (BSS), Mobile Satellite Service (MSS), and Fixed Satellite Service (FSS).

Traditionally referred to as the “W-band” of the electromagnetic spectrum, the 10,000 MHz assigned to SWANSAT includes 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz spectra located in Band 11 of the Extremely High Frequency (EHF) 30-300GHz band described in §2.101 Nomenclature of Frequencies contained in Subpart B: Allocation, Assignment, and Use of Radio Frequencies set forth in the Rules of the Federal Communications Commission of the United States of America. SWANSAT represents the first ever commercial claim, assignment, and use of these frequencies from GSO. Neither while allocated to commercial FSS and MSS decades ago, neither assignment nor claim for these W-band spectra had been made with respect to GSO telecommunications by any nation until SWANSAT filed on behalf of its Host Country an Advanced Publication Information statement making a first commercial use claim filing before the ITU in April 2004.

For more details please visit the SWANSAT website.