Albanian broadband provider Starsat’s focus over the next year is to bring the benefits of satellite data services to rural parts of Albania where there is no terrestrial infrastructure. The company, which works alongside SES Astra and Newtec, is playing a key role in connecting rural communities and schools.
    Starsat CEO Dritan Vreshta told Via Satellite that Albania’s existing government has been focused on making telecommunications and the Internet widely available for its citizens. “In 2009, there was a project to deliver broadband Internet to schools. We have started to deliver Internet to every school. At the time, only 600 out of 2,000 schools in Albania could be connected. Now they are all able to receive service,” he said.
    Starsat also started working on a project last summer to make Albania’s postal system more efficient, partnering with Albania’s incumbent post provider Albania Post. “They decided to have Internet in all their post offices all around Albania. While 220 offices were in urban areas, 300 are located in places where there was no terrestrial infrastructure. We have now 300 post offices up and running with 400 Mbps download and 256 Mbps upload. At the time of implementing the project, it was considered attractive for many postal operators around the world. We are promoting this as a case study to post office companies around the world,” he said.
    Despite progress being made in connecting different parts of Albanian society, the cost of hardware for implementing satellite projects remains a challenge for Vreshta. While costs have been coming down, projects still require significant capital investment. “It is still expensive to buy the hardware. But this is coming down as technology from companies like Newtec have a self-install element. We have clients that can install it themselves. This is a very good option.”
    Because of Albania’s long history of higher hardware costs, Vreshta said that Starsat has had to take on the task of educating the public and government agencies of the industry’s changing dynamics and technology, which he believes are critical to the country’s developing economy.
    “Many people in Albania still believe satellite solutions are not as viable. It is totally different when you go to the Middle East and Africa, where people are much more aware of satellite. We are actively educating European government agencies about the performance of satellite and are telling them that it exists with attractive costs,” he said. “Satellite is very important to Albania’s future. The main angle we have to focus on is Albania as a post-communist society that has a lot of problems in terms of the development of terrestrial infrastructure. We have inherited nothing from the previous government. We have no cable in most of the rural areas and lack of terrestrial infrastructure has led to satellite communications being a must.”