Singapore December 2021 — Kacific’s COVID-19 Response has been recognized as the Satellite Project of the Year at the Global Carrier Awards 2021, as the most ingenious and visionary project in the satellite space.

When the COVID-19 crisis took the world by surprise in the last two years, and at a time where medical care and sharing information was crucial in combatting it, many rural regions throughout the Pacific were without connectivity to their main centers. To bridge this gap, Kacific rapidly initiated a large scale Community WiFi project to provide rural health clinics with high-quality, low-cost satellite broadband with easy-to-install and affordable antennas. The project would draw capacity from Kacific’s high throughput satellite, Kacific1, which uses spot beam technology to cover populated areas across 25 regions.

In partnership with GuarantCo, Kacific secured a grant from the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) Technical Assistance to fund the terminals and help support governments and communities in Asia and the Pacific in their fight against the pandemic.

Since then, over 200 terminals have been installed in Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, and Tonga bringing fast affordable broadband to health clinics, schools and communities around the world. They connect clinics, schools, and facilities for government agencies to curb, monitor, and control the spread of infectious Covid-19 clusters in rural areas, as well as to train local medical practitioners to cope with local virus outbreaks.

“Kacific is honored to receive this award,” says CEO, Christian Patouraux. “However, the real heroes and visionaries have been the doctors, nurses, and health workers working in some of the most remote communities in the Pacific, who have so quickly discovered what they can do with connectivity, how it can help them take care of their people and save lives.”

Kacific’s service has allowed medical professionals in isolated areas to coordinate with nationwide COVID-19 health responses, arrange emergency evacuations, and communicate with city-based specialists. The connected clinics were enabled to save more lives, especially in critical life-and-death cases. On top of that, Kacific’s internet connection at health clinics doubled up as a community hub and was used for disaster response communications by the locals.

The project provides free 30GB of data for up to 1,000 rural health posts and clinics across the Asia Pacific and the initial sites will get three months of free bandwidth. With each terminal comes a “Community Wifi” prepaid data package that allows the local community to connect using voucher codes.

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ABOUT KACIFIC

Kacific Broadband Satellites Group (Kacific) is a next-generation broadband satellite operator that provides affordable, high-speed broadband access to Asia Pacific. Kacific uses the latest multi-beam space communications and ground technology to provide a quality service to businesses, governments and communities.

Kacific’s high-throughput Ka-band satellite, Kacific1, delivers to the Pacific and Southeast Asia, with a focus on underserved rural and suburban areas. Kacific services foster greater internet usage, fuelling economic growth and improvements in service delivery across covered regions.

Kacific’s awards include Best Digital Inclusion (Pacific ICT Awards, 2019), Satellite Executive of the Year: Christian Patouraux (APSCC, 2019) and Better World Satellite Award (SSPI, 2018). Kacific’s headquarters are in Singapore with main operations out of Vanuatu.

For more information:
visit www.kacific.com or follow on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube.

Media Contact
Allan Botica
Botica Butler Raudon Partners
allanb@botica.co.nz