Afghanistan Satellite Direct — Up + Running

Afghanistan Satellite Direct is a new iDirect satellite Internet service between Afghanistan and the USA and the service is being offered by Hawaii Pacific Teleport and its service partner, On-Band. The service is provided on the JCSAT 3A C-band satellite at orbital position 128 degrees East, operated by Sky Perfect JSAT Corporation.

The satellite footprint encompasses Afghanistan and adjoining countries that include Pakistan — also supported is the two way iDirect service for customers with light usage requirements. The new iDirect service is unique as it offers the only one hop satellite connection between Afghanistan and the USA through the HPT teleport in Hawaii. The new Afghanistan Satellite Direct service provides the lowest latency communications link from Afghanistan to most of the USA, which is important for defense contractors who for security reasons need to use thin client server based computing to eliminate the need of storing classified information on computers in Afghanistan. The JCSAT 3A satellite is precision operated by SkyPerfect JSAT Company from their Yokohama TT&C in Japan, one of 12 satellites in the JSAT fleet which has in an in-orbit back up satellite.