Arsat, Argentina’s state-owned satellite company, is to run a 289 million peso (about $2.8 million) project to provide connectivity for free internet access in towns across the country.
Arsat will connect towns that still lack access to telecommunications services in the 24 provinces of the country. The installation of services will be carried out using fibre optic, satellite/VSAT and Wi-Fi infrastructure.
News website bnamericas says that Arsat was among the bidders in a process launched by the open government and digital country undersecretariat, which is part of the public innovation secretariat (SIP).
The site says that the 12-month agreement between Arsat and SIP includes the installation of 40 VSAT antennas, 231 local access loops, 1584 Wi-Fi subscriptions, 120 VSAT subscriptions, 1848 Wi-Fi and VSAT subscriptions and 6,804 subscriptions that integrate terrestrial and Wi-Fi links, along with just under 300 Meraki brand access points.
We still await a comprehensive list of locations, though we do know that about 28 percent of the new facilities will be located in the central region, 23 percent in the city of Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires province, 18 percent in the northwest, 15 percent in Patagonia, 11 percent in the northeast and 5 percent in the Cuyo region.
Arsat already operates a nearly 32,000-metre fibre optic wholesale network, while its geostationary satellites ARSAT-1 and ARSAT-2 offer coverage in Argentina and the entire Americas. The planned third satellite in the fleet, ARSAT-SG1, will become the first national satellite to operate in the Ka-band.
This is not the only major win for the state-owned satellite company this year. Last week Arsat reported thar it had received approval and funding for a satcoms and cellular-based IoT service for asset tracking.
