Orange

Connecting the Central African Republic

Industry
Telecommunications

Location
Central African Republic

Located between Cameroon and South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) is a country with a rich culture and natural beauty.

However, providing reliable broadband communications and Internet connectivity throughout this landlocked country, and between the CAR and the rest of the world, has been challenging for the country’s social and economic development.

Prior to 2017, Orange CAR, one of the largest communications providers serving the CAR, found that delivering reliable services to its customers was problematic. At that time, 2G and 3G mobile services were the norm in the country, and 4G had not yet been deployed. Approximately 2 million residents – just 38% of the population – had mobile service, with 3G penetration accounting for about 60%, with 2G serving the remainder. Only a small fraction – 11% or approximately 600,000 residents – had Internet access, with an average download speed of 22.55Mbps on fixed connections. Orange CAR was able to address these problems and accelerate the deployment of services to the CAR by making use of SES’s multi-orbit network of MEO and GEO satellites. 

Reliable IP and International Trunking via MEO

In 2017, Orange CAR began using SES’s O3b medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellation to deliver 300Mbps of trunking services. Because of SES’s scalability, Orange CAR was able to quickly increase throughput to 3 Gbps to support growing international traffic. SES not only provided reliable day-to-day trunking, but it also offered effective and quick service restoration when other connections experience problems. For example, in November 2023, Orange CAR experienced an outage on a microwave link coming from Cameroon. Within a few days, SES was able to reestablish the link, providing 1 Gbps of low latency and secured connectivity using MEO. With the success of this solution, Orange CAR is looking to future expansion, moving to SES’s next-generation MEO constellation, O3b mPOWER. The transition to O3b mPOWER will provide Orange CAR with a seamless experience, and the high-throughput, low-latency connectivity it requires as demand for IP and international trunking continues to grow in CAR.

Extending into Mobile Backhaul via GEO

The positive experience of using SES for trunking led Orange CAR to look at satellite for mobile backhaul, given the poor reliability of the terrestrial fixed network. In 2020, the companies extended their partnership. SES began serving 78 of Orange CAR’s mobile sites, providing backhaul services to support its 2G and 3G network. Using SES’s geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites, Orange was able to gain flexibility and control of its mobile network and expand into hard-to-reach and remote areas. Now Orange CAR is easily handling 700 Mbps of traffic, securely bringing the Internet from the core to sites throughout the country. SES has been instrumental in addressing mobile backhaul outages as well, restoring service within just a few days after a fire at one of Orange CAR’s hubs in 2021. Another outage occurred in early 2024 when 13 sites went down. In this case, SES re-established service to these sites within a few hours.