BlueSky lets contract for satellite backup link
Pactel International has been let a contract to supply a large-scale satellite back-up link for Bluesky Samoa’s existing international submarine fibre network, covering two islands of Samoa and American Samoa.
The new link enables better diversity allowing support of the most critical applications of IP traffic in case of a fibre network failure.
Based on the DVB-S2 C-Band Platform, the service is directly connected to Pactel’s Australian backbone via the IS-18 satellite and provides unprecedented performance and low latency.
In a case of a fail event, the switch to the satellite gateway would be instant without human intervention, and once the primary connection returns, the satellite connection will automatically revert back to sleep mode.
The service is supported by 24/7 network monitoring and support from Pactel’s Network Operations Centre and, if required, field technician support.
Adolfo Montenegro, CEO of Bluesky Samoa commented: “We again turned to Pactel to upgrade our satellite redundancy solution and they delivered beyond our expectations. The solution combines improved consolidated design and advanced Pactel services yielding a more robust solution for our customers. We are very satisfied with the recent failover test, managed by Pactel’s satellite engineers onsite, which confirmed seamless performance of the backup solution. I congratulate and thank the Pactel team for their expertise throughout the design, implementation and control stages of this project.”
“Satellite backup services are becoming very common amongst service providers, said Steffen Holzt, Executive Director at Pactel International.
“Using satellite as their secondary network enables service providers to maintain uninterrupted network connectivity in case of a primary network failure. We are very pleased to implement this service for the largest telecommunications provider of Samoa and American Samoa.”
Formerly a Government owned Enterprise (SamoaTel Ltd.) the company was acquired by (American Samoa based) BlueSky Communications and re-launched itself as BlueSky Samoa in Dec 2011 when it became the first company to build and launch an HSPA+ (21Mbps) network in the South Pacific.
BlueSky’s sister company BlueSky Communications offers similar services to residents and businesses in neighbouring American Samoa.