Avanti beefing up its SA business
Satellite operator Avanti Communications is beefing up its SA business as demand grows for satellite services to plug the connectivity holes left by mobile and fibre companies.
The group said on Thursday that it had hired telecom veteran Chris van Rooyen to head its local sales effort.
Interest in satellites has grown worldwide since Elon Musk launched Starlink a few years ago. Avanti has four satellites, having invested $1.2bn (nearly R22.5m). Business Day understands that $800m of that capacity is over Africa.
The operator said that Van Rooyen, who left Liquid Intelligent Technologies after a decade, would join Avanti as its new sales director.
“Van Rooyen will spearhead enterprise sales at Avanti in SA combining his in-depth market understanding with Avanti’s vision for SA telco convergence,” said the company.
The company is counting on the telecommunications expertise Van Rooyen gained over 25 years to grow Avanti’s enterprise services in the region and find customers. He will report to the company’s senior vice-president of sales and SA country manager, Gamze Aydin. “Chris’ appointment marks a significant milestone for Avanti as we sharpen our focus on SA. His deep understanding of the evolving telecom landscape, evident in his vision for a convergence of telco service offerings, and his track record in the enterprise sphere, make him the ideal leader to take our services to the next level, said Aydin.
Interest in the satellite space has been growing from mobile operators, who have worked with such providers for years. Interest has been spurred by the promise of low Earth orbiting technology, as used by Starlink.
Avanti opened its first African office in SA in 2018, and is focused on creating more local employment opportunities across the country.
The group has a number of business areas, one of which is to provide additional satellite coverage for other satellite providers in areas where they do not have network cover.
In the same vein, Avanti also works with mobile operators on the continent such as MTN, Vodacom and Airtel, plugging coverage gaps, particularly in less densely populated areas.
Despite notable improvements in the past decade, internet connectivity in rural areas and outside big centres remains limited, and building networking infrastructure in underserved areas is expensive. Global telecom body, the GSMA, says the coverage gap in Sub-Saharan Africa narrowed from 50% in 2014 to 17% in 2022.
Avanti also serves military clients as a third area of its business.
MTN said recently that it was in talks with Musk’s Starlink, while Vodacom and parent Vodafone are now working with Amazon’s Project Kuiper.
VAN ROOYEN WILL SPEARHEAD ENTERPRISE SALES … COMBINING HIS IN-DEPTH MARKET UNDERSTANDING WITH AVANTI ’ S VISION