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The European Space Agency (ESA) has long sought to leverage its space-infrastructure expertise not just for exploration, but for societal benefit – especially in regions underserved by traditional terrestrial communications.
One such effort is Every Community Online (ECO), a public-private partnership under ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) programme. ECO was designed to bring affordable, reliable broadband connectivity via satellite to schools, health centres, community hubs and remote populations in Sub-Saharan Africa and related emerging markets.
The connectivity challenge
In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, fixed-line broadband and reliable mobile data are still scarce or prohibitively expensive. In 2019, around 28% of urban African locations and just 6% of rural locations had internet access.
With next-generation satellites offering higher throughput at lower cost, there remains a gap: ground-segment technologies, service delivery platforms and business models suitable for low Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) environments had not yet matured. ECO emerged as an effort to fill that gap: to validate and roll out ground-segment solutions optimised for High-Throughput Satellite (HTS) use and tailored business models for low-income contexts.
ECO responds to the digital divide by leveraging telecommunications infrastructure and innovative service delivery to empower communities.
Partners and Scope
Under ESA’s Partnership Projects programme, ECO is structured as a public–private partnership. ESA provided programme oversight and funding, while industry brings technology, operations and business models. Key industrial partners include:
The partnership sought to validate not just the satellite link, but the full stack: hub equipment, user terminals (including WiFi hotspots), service platforms, roaming between satellite spot-beams, and business models tailored for low-income community broadband contexts.
Timeline of ECO
Phase 1
Launched in 2016 and completed in November 2020, ECO’s first phase demonstrated the viability of the approach. Key achievements included:
- Integration of SatADSL’s Cloud-based Service Delivery Platform (C-SDP) with enhanced billing/payment features aligned to local business models suited for low ARPU contexts.
- Commissioning of a hub (via ST Engineering iDirect) using Avanti’s Hylas-4 satellite via four traffic gateways in the UK, Cyprus, South Africa and Nigeria.
- Development and deployment of user-terminals featuring WiFi hotspot modules capable of grid power or solar photovoltaic panels – important in off-grid or unreliable-grid contexts. These were successfully piloted across ten countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Phase 2
Beginning in 2020, ECO’s second phase focused on scaling up and improving efficiency. Key enhancements included:
- Enhanced terminal-management capabilities to reduce total cost of ownership in large-scale deployments.
- Improvements in bandwidth-efficiency through wide-band multicarrier pre-distortion and automated bandwidth allocation among satellite spot-beams.
- Geographical redundancy in hub and network-management systems for increased resilience.
Socio-Economic Impacts (SEI) of ECO
ECO achieved multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including:
ECO also offered connectivity for health centres, internet cafés, community hubs, and other entities that previously had limited or no access. By facilitating community WiFi hubs and shared-access architectures, it enables not just connectivity but communal benefits: education, health information, commerce, and social inclusion.
For European industry, ECO provides a platform to bring large-scale connectivity solutions optimised for emerging-market contexts, strengthening competitiveness in underserved markets globally.