Linkserve Launches LinkStar Hubs, SurfBeam System

Linkserve, one of the largest ISPs in West Africa and pioneer ISP in Nigeria has launched  LinkStar ACM and SurfBeam satellite networking system hubs powered by ViaSat Inc.
Harry Strabos, regional director (Middle East and Africa), ViaSat Inc in a statement said: “We are excited to have a customer like Linkserve who is willing to embrace new technologies and bring them to the people of West Africa,” adding that ViaSat’s longstanding relationship with Linkserve to promote superior satellite technologies has helped to increase broadband and data penetration in the region.
The new hub being the second LinkStar hub owned by Linkserve, will operate on the Intelsat IS905 satellite providing C-band coverage over Africa, augmenting Ku-band services already provided through its LinkStar hub in Lagos using Astra 2B.
In addition to the two LinkStar hubs, Linkserve is deploying a Ku-band SurfBeam Hub, the first to serve the African market. Services to be offered across all three platforms include internet browsing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and streaming Mpeg-4 video.
According to Chima Onyekwere, chairman, Linkserve, “This is another step toward fulfilling our mission of being a major player in the West African Vsat market.”
The ViaSat satellite network hubs deliver to the region a new level of performance with its DVB-S2 ITU standard technology, including Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM), as well as Virtual Network Operator provisioning (VNO), which enables larger service providers to manage and monitor multiple satellite networks through a single hub and the SurfBeam system advantages namely highly-scalable architecture, high system capacity, very low cost terminals, and advanced third-party front and back-office system support.
It also supports efficient multimedia streaming and IPTV applications.
Linkserve has multiple satellite hubs dedicated to serving the African market with broadband internet, data service and video streaming, and has a longstanding partnership with various satellite equipment and service providers in order to provide superior satellite technologies in the African region towards increasing the quality of network connection as well as broadband and data services penetration in the region.
Recently a Data Center and Satellite Teleport for commercial purposes was established in Lagos and is integrated into several homing IP feeds.