South African data centres bracing for satellite explosion

South African data centres are set to play a critical role in making low-earth orbit (LEO) and medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellite services perform effectively in the country and on the continent.

While space-based Internet communication has been around for decades, the big change in recent years is that the satellites supporting this connectivity have been put into much lower orbit.

Conventional geosynchronous (GEO) satellites operate at more than 35,000km above the Earth.

While that allows them to provide extensive coverage, the big distance reduces download and upload speeds.

In addition, having a single satellite covering a large area limits bandwidth capacity.

LEO satellites like Starlink, Eutelsat Oneweb, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper operate between about 500km and 2,000km above the Earth.

The lesser-known MEO satellite services that came a bit earlier but are also seeing increased interest — like SES — operate between 2,000km and 36,000km.

By orbiting closer to Earth and consisting of larger fleets of hundreds of satellites, these networks can offer much faster speeds and greater bandwidth.

Starlink, for example, boasts download speeds well over 100Mbps.

However, no satellite broadband service — old or new — can operate independently of “upstream” Internet ground infrastructure. At least not until humans start putting massive data centres in space.

Given their significant power consumption, it could be some time before the necessary advancements are made for space-based data centres to become a reality.

As it stands, all the content on the Internet is hosted in Earth-based data centres and servers,

Terrestrial fibre connections provide the fastest access to this data, often with sub-10ms latency in South Africa. That makes fibre ideal for applications like video conferencing and online gaming.

For satellite networks to support near-similar performance, they must have ground infrastructure located close to data centres.

This is particularly true for LEO services, for which low latencies are a big advantage and major selling point over GEO and MEO.

While Starlink has already launched in several Southern African countries, its latency in most is over 100ms, well above the 20ms to 40ms it advertises in the US.

Although this is a substantial improvement over GEO services with 600ms+ latency, it is not sufficient to offer a “fibre-like” experience.

The main reason for the high latency is that Starlink’s nearest ground station to the Southern African countries is in Nigeria.

In areas where its satellites cannot transmit directly to the ground for backhaul to the Internet, it uses inter-satellite links (“space lasers”) to transfer data to a satellite within the coverage area of a ground station.

The map below shows the Starlink network’s latency in countries where it is available, with lighter being better than darker.

Earth station colocation providers in South Africa

Starlink already has type approval for three ground stations or “Earth Gateways’ in South Africa. However, it is not clear where or when it plans to roll these out.

Ideally, the closer these facilities are to data centres hosting Internet content, the better.

MyBroadband asked major data centre companies in South Africa about their interest in facilitating satellite connectivity.

One colocation provider — Digital Parks Africa (DPA) — told MyBroadband that it was thrilled to witness the transformative impact of LEO and MEO satellite services on Africa’s digital landscape.

“The combination of fibre and satellite technology creates a more integrated connectivity solution, broadening access for a diverse range of users,” DPA said.

“While fibre supports hyperscale solutions, each service — LEO, MEO, and fibre — occupies a unique niche and enhances one another’s capabilities.”

DPA said that LEO’s pioneering technology extended digital infrastructure to communities that previously had limited or no access, delivering impressive capacity and a host of new benefits.

“Meanwhile, advancements in MEO technology are bringing leading-edge connectivity solutions to enterprise clients, supporting seamless cloud services across land, sea, and air,” it added.

The company said it looked forward to how LEO and MEO services would further expand broadband accessibility and cross-support its existing systems.

A major telecommunications infrastructure provider — Paratus South Africa — also built a vendor-neutral satellite teleport facility in Doornkloof, Pretoria, in 2023.

“Built to world-class specifications, the Goedehoop Teleport is a next-generation facility that has been constructed to service future needs for reliable Teleport connectivity and colocation services in South Africa and into Africa,” the company said.

Paratus South Africa managing director Kallie Carlsen said the timing of the launch was crucial as satellite communication would play an increasingly important role in keeping businesses connected in Africa.

South Africa’s biggest data centre company, Teraco, also operates a vendor-neutral satellite earth station at its Isando campus in Johannesburg. It was launched over 12 years ago, with African telecoms Liquid Telecom as its first customer.

The company said the facility has helped Liquid support up to 50Mbps satellite Internet download speeds, 99.5% satellite service availability, and 100% satellite Internet coverage of the African continent.

Teraco also runs South Africa and Africa’s biggest Internet exchange — NAPAfrica — which hosts content and services from over 640 major companies including all of the world’s tech giants.

Locating a satellite Earth station near its facilities could be of huge benefit to satellite Internet users in South Africa and nearby countries.