RCS Invests in O3b Networks Capacity Upgrade and Diversity Solution, Demonstrates Commitment to Superior Reliability

O3b Networks today announced an agreement with RCS-Communication, a leading Internet Service Provider (ISP) in South Sudan, to more than double their bandwidth capacity over the next two years and to implement the first O3bPerformance Services site Diversity solution.

RCS became one of O3b's pioneering clients when they signed a long-term contract in 2013 (prior to the launch of O3b's first satellites) and became the second African business to use the O3bTrunk product when the service was commercialised in October 2014.

RCS uses O3bTrunk to connect their WiMAX and High Throughput PtMP networks in the capital, Juba, to the internet. Despite the country's current challenging times, RCS has nearly exhausted their contracted capacity as demand for bandwidth continues to increase.

"The timing may seem unexpected for us to upgrade capacity and invest in O3b's diversity solution, as most players in the South Sudan Telco/ISP sector are currently scaling down due to economic and other challenges." said Flippie Odendal, Managing Director, RCS-Communication. "While RCS is not isolated from these issues and their impact, our investment decision was taken with a long term view, though it will have immediate benefits to our clients once deployed."

"Demand for bandwidth continues to rise as the use of cloud-based applications increases and a significant number of our Enterprise clients are implementing ERP and other systems to improve their efficiencies. It is here that O3b's low latency solution offers RCS a strong competitive edge, greatly enhancing the user experience for these applications. The decision to invest in an O3b site Diversity solution will ensure superior uptime (exceeding 99.9% on the Trunking layer) and RCS will be able to offer our clients the lowest latency with the highest uptime combination in the market."

With this upgrade, RCS will be the first customer to implement the site Diversity solution, the first of O3b's solutions to leverage its software defined networking (SDN) platform for intelligent switching across multiple satellite links and part of a suite of O3bPerformance Services. With Diversity, ground terminals are placed in multiple locations, yielding the highest possible network reliability and resiliency, setting RCS apart for mission critical corporate and government applications.

"We are proud to be working with RCS to improve connectivity and create opportunities in South Sudan," said Carole Kamaitha, Vice President, Africa for O3b Networks. "Deploying a unique hybrid solution that integrates O3bTrunk with existing high throughput terrestrial networks will give RCS the best quality network and will set the company apart from other providers in the region."