Intelsat announced Sept. 23 that African Virtual University selected the company to be the strategic communications partner for an initiative to establish a higher education bandwidth consortium to make Internet bandwidth more accessible to African universities.

The initiative will use Intelsat’s Globalconnex Internet trunking service to deliver bandwidth to 11 universities and two consortia in six African countries in its initial deployment. Intelsat’s network for the service consists of its teleport in Germany and the IS-903 and IS-904 satellites, both of which provide coverage to the region.