Telesat, one of the world’s
largest and most innovative satellite operators, and Liquid Intelligent
Technologies, a business of Cassava Technologies, a leading pan-African
technology group, has announced a strategic cooperation agreement to explore
reciprocal go-to-market strategies to bring Telesat Lightspeed Low Earth Orbit
(LEO) satellite services to Africa.
As
part of the agreement, according to a statement, the companies will closely collaborate on the commercial
and technical aspects of integrating the Telesat Lightspeed enterprise-grade,
high-throughput, low-latency satellite network with Liquid’s global value-added
services network. This integration can enable the expansion of Liquid’s
enterprise portfolio offerings, including next-generation cloud services,
managed security services, business Wi-Fi, and data center connectivity.
It continued that at
the same time, Telesat will explore combining Liquid’s landing stations, Points
of Presences (PoPs), site hosting, management services, and fibre network as
part of its global terrestrial infrastructure that seamlessly integrates with
the Telesat Lightspeed satellite network.
“Liquid’s
terrestrial infrastructure in Africa is second to none, from the largest fibre
network spanning over 100,000 kilometers to state-of-the-art teleports and
access to diverse points-of-presence within the continent,” said Glenn Katz,
Telesat’s Chief Commercial Officer. “We’re eager to explore the synergies
between both of our company’s offerings, with confidence that we will establish
a ‘win-win’ for our organizations and the future of connectivity for Africa.”
“Telesat
Lightspeed will be the world’s most advanced LEO network, delivering the
enterprise-grade, fibre-like connectivity that Africa’s massively underserved
market needs,” said Scott Mumford, Liquid Satellite Services CEO. “Integrating
ubiquitous, multi-gigabit per second links with guaranteed SLA’s from Telesat
Lightspeed will enable Liquid to expand their award-winning services via an
untethered network in the sky, and deliver expanded service offerings to our
customers not possible through the current satellite-based offerings.”
The agreement opens the door for
a collaborative approach to LEO terrestrial development. Moving forward,
Telesat and Liquid Intelligent Technologies will work together to determine how
each company’s industry-leading technologies can integrate with the other to
better serve the African continent.
