Celebrating 30 years of advancing critical communications: TCCA enters its fourth decade as the authoritative voice of the sector

04 November 2024

For 30 years, TCCA has been at the forefront of promoting the use of standardised technologies to deliver mission-critical communication systems that are secure, available, resilient, interoperable and, ultimately, trusted.

In the five years since we marked our 25th anniversary, much has been achieved despite the global pandemic. We would like to thank all our members and partners for their hugely valued support and contributions that combine to deliver the collaborative advancement of critical communications. We would also like to thank the critical communications media outlets that are so supportive and publicise our work.

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Can LEO help connect Africa?

04 November 2024

Helen Weedon, managing director,
Satcoms Innovation Group

Helen Weedon, managing director,
Satcoms Innovation Group

South Africa’s Liquid Intelligent Technologies recently signed a deal with Eutelsat Group that will see enterprise-grade Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite services being made available in Africa. The companies claim it will lead to enhanced performance for services across the continent. Will this help make Africa more connected and ultimately bridge the digital divide?

The state of connectivity in Africa

Africa is widely reported as lagging behind in internet connectivity. A report by SES in 2022 cited just 33% internet penetration. While it seems it has risen quite considerably since then, we are still looking at around 43%, much lower than elsewhere in the world. And there are bigger problems when you look at the regional differences. According to the SES report, while as many as 50% of people in urban areas are connected, this drops to 15% in rural areas. And of course those rural areas are also less connected in terms of other infrastructure, access to medical support and education, making the internet connectivity all the more important.

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Looking to the new capabilities of 5G for critical communications

01 November 2024

Kevin Graham, TCCA CEO

Kevin Graham, TCCA CEO

TCCA promotes the use of standardised technologies to deliver mission-critical communication systems that are secure, available, resilient, interoperable and, ultimately, trusted. It also supports other standardised narrowband technologies, and with the establishment of its Critical Communications Broadband Group (CCBG) some 14 years ago, TCCA recognised the need to deploy 3GPP mobile broadband critical communications, which in many cases will complement or replace narrowband networks.

We are now in the 5G era, and with 5G rollouts advancing, the opportunities to further enhance critical communications are becoming clear. 5G is an ever-evolving technology with new features still being added. For example, network slicing is designed to allocate specific required resources to meet the requirements of different user groups, while multi-access edge computing (MEC) servers can enable low latency applications by moving processing closer to the edge.

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Intelsat 33e total loss

01 November 2024

Intelsat has reported that the anomaly it disclosed on the Intelsat 33e satellite has resulted in the total loss of the satellite.

On 19 October, Intelsat announced a service outage on the Intelsat 33e satellite, affecting customers in Africa, Europe and parts of the Asia-Pacific, resulting in a loss of power and service to customers.

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