“Philippe Baudrier, General Manager of Eutelsat Africa, has been with Eutelsat for 10 years and has been Broadband Sales Director for Europe, Russia and Africa for 7 years. For the past 3 years, he has been General Manager of Eutelsat Africa, responsible for developing partnerships and connectivity solutions for companies, telecoms operators, Internet service providers, families and governments.
1 : What is Eutelsat ADVANCE?
Eutelsat ADVANCE is a solution offering unlimited broadband data and Internet access.
The current economic climate has accentuated the need for global connectivity, as more and more business processes migrate to the cloud. That’s why we offer Eutelsat ADVANCE, our geostationary and LEO (OneWeb) satellite networks.
2: What are the advantages of Eutelsat ADVANCE compared to other connectivity providers?
We have no geographical constraints, the service is available wherever your mining companies are present. For example, 100% of the DRC is covered, even in the most remote areas where traditional telecom operators (fiber, 4G, etc.) cannot operate.
Eutelsat’s multi-faceted proposal provides all the service options needed to build the network to meet the data challenges of your site (telemedicine, video surveillance, cloud access, surfing, etc.). The solution is easily interoperable with traffic management services such as SD-WAN or cybersecurity.
We do not rely on a local or regional infrastructure but on an international network, which allows us to compensate for any outages or malfunctions that could affect the physical network of the region.
Moreover, Eutelsat ADVANCE is more and more used for the backup of accesses in hypercenters.
3: How can your solution help mining companies?
With this very high speed access we can improve certain uses specific to the mining sector such as remote monitoring or maintenance, but also operate in the best conditions the exploration tools, especially those that require large computing power. Our reliable connection also enables video management for video surveillance or telemedicine.
Eutelsat ADVANCE is also used to improve the comfort of miners at their living quarters, in particular via our Wi-Fi hot spots, which allow everyone to use the Internet. In addition, our low-orbit constellation will enable us to deliver a short latency (70ms), which has a positive impact on “Real Time” applications.
4 : Do you have a concrete example to show us ?
Many mines and mining industries are customers, for example one of them operates the Sankuru mine located more than 200km from the local capital (Mbuji-Mayi) and is not covered by any telecommunication system. The mine manager was looking for a reliable and efficient solution to communicate with local authorities and improve the well-being of workers on site. He chose Eutelsat ADVANCE as his main connection solution (delivered via the KONNECT satellite). We provided the connection kit (antenna, router, modem, cables etc.) as well as the installation and technical support. They are now connected to broadband and able to communicate instantly with the mine headquarters and their families without having to travel 2 days to find a connection.