Telemar/Oi is the largest telecom operator in Brazil offering fixed line telephony, ADSL, cellular services, IPTV, and satellite services. They operate in sixteen states in Brazil’s north and eastern regions, including the populous states of Rio de Janeiro and the remote regions of Amazon.

In 2005, Telemar contracted Siemens to install a turnkey SatLink network to serve rural telephony requirements (including FAX and data) in all sixteen states within Brazil where Telemar/Oi operates.

Today, this network has over 1,700 VSATs with more than 14,000 phone circuits, and 5,600 payphones. And, this is planned to more than double to at least 3,600 VSATs and more than 30,000 circuits serving millions of people across the scattered and remote regions of Brazil. An average Remote Terminal supports 10 subscriber lines on one VSAT.

Cities and villages served are typically between 200 and 600 people. The services delivered by the STM Network include: PCO and fixed line services, other services including FAX and data are planned, including Internet access over dial-up and ADSL.

Brasil Telecom is the second largest operator of fixed line telephony in Brazil, covering vast territories including the difficult to reach areas in the Amazons. As part of its privatization several years ago, Brazil Telecom assumed a regulatory obligation to expand fixed-line subscriber services, as well public pay phone services in many previously unserved areas. This obligation requires expansion of services into remote towns and villages based on defined timelines and population of the unserved localities.

Additionally, regulatory obligations require independent, third party audit of all installation and service quality standards that are routinely checked to verify compliance. To satisfy its pending obligation, Brasil Telecom awarded a contract to STM to supply, on a turnkey basis, a Solante and Satlink Network with seven gateways and over one thousand terminals. STM has been also contracted to provide network operation and maintenance.

Etisalat is the preeminent phone company in the Middle East and is head quartered in Abu-Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Etisalat has its major earth station facilities at Jabal-Ali south of Dubai with multiple large antennas located in a world-class teleport owned and operated by Etisalat.

The Jab-Ali earth station houses a major Solante network NC and Gateway as show in the picture. The network is used for a domestic and overseas application. Within UAE, the network serves several hundred individual households at the remotest areas of UAE and bordering Saudi Arabia.

Previously, these end users were served by wireless radio systems occupying valuable spectrum used by the military and partly overlapping the UMTS band.

Expansion of the cellular network necessitated evacuation of these frequency bands without interruption in service to end customers.

The Kingdom of Nepal, located in the high mountains of the Himalayas is at the heart of the Asian continent and represents one of the most isolated areas in the world.

Through World Bank financing, and under license from the government of Nepal, STM has implemented a turn key project including installation and full network operation and local maintenance to bring much needed communications to the remotest villages of Eastern Nepal. The system deploys solar powered Solante VSATs offering public calling offices with the facilities to provide basic phone connectivity to villagers. The system uses an integrated pre-paid platform in order to avoid collection problems during operation.

Before the deployment of the new rural telecom network in Nepal, a villager would have to travel up to four days to reach to a telephone line.

The Siberian region of Russia is a vast territory with many small villages so isolated that in many areas, there are no roads. STM was contracted by Iskra Telecom, an experienced telecom operator, to implement a rural telephony system which could meet the demanding requirements established by the local regulators.

The Siberian telephone network uses many small and isolated, locally manufactured central office switches, which handle several hundred subscribers each. The project requirements demanded that calls be made in a single hop manner among the subscribers connected to such switches, while at the same time calls from users of remote VSAT terminals be routed to the subscribers connected to such central office switches, which often had a handful of trunks.

Currently, there are over one thousand operating VSAT terminals in Siberia. The images a VSAT installation in Northern Siberia visited by the only available mode of local transportation.