Africa's first earth satellite telecommunication station dedicated in Morocco
An earth satellite telecommunication station "Orbcomm Maghreb," the first in Africa, was dedicated Friday in Settat by a Moroccan official party.
The station, a Global Mobile Personnel Communications systems, located on a hill overlooking the city, inter-connects 35 satellites to the region's earth communications networks, using the OBCOMM system, the first world private system that uses small satellites at low altitude to receive and send message.
Services include geographic location, remote-control, remote-measuring and a two-way message transfer. General manager of Orbcomm, Abdallah Alaoui, explains that the system makes it possible to localize trucks travelling around Morocco or abroad and communicate in areas not covered by conventional networks.
Oil companies could use the system to assess the state of their stocks nationwide. It is also possible to tele-operate machines.
Messages sent from an Orbcomm terminal to satellites are received by the Settat regional earth station, transferred to the monitoring center in Casablanca and forwarded to recipients in quasi-real time. The system is also useful to companies based in Morocco and north Africa to improve, at low cost, their performances and asset management. The management of boats, goods and persons transport vehicles, natural resource preservation ad the monitoring of energy and water consumption can also be undertaken by the system in real time by the system through Internet. The system is expected to reflect positively on research and development of computer software, networks and telecommunications.
A Moroccan official said two years after the country liberalized its telecommunications sectors, it is proud that Orbcomm, a Moroccan company that was the first one to obtain a license to operate a satellite communication network in Morocco and north Africa, has opened this station.
Orbcomm Maghreb, an affiliate of Orbcomm Global a US-Canadian joint venture, covers Europe through a partnership with Orbcomm Europe.