What use is Satellite Internet?
President, Application Technology Strategy, Inc.
From the October, 2004, issue of SatMagazine.com
The question about Internet over satellite is not, "will it work" (because it does) but rather "how do I use it in my work?" Putting satellite Internet to work requires a thorough understanding of the technical capabilities of network technology as well as the satellites themselves. As such, it demands that we understand how satellite Internet can effectively meet needs better than competing alternatives. To this I dedicate and address this article.
Posing such a question reminds me of the first home computer I had, back in 1979. It only had the capability to run simple programs written in Microsoft Basic (which was an early commercial product from Bill Gates and Paul Allen). The machine was a self contained microcomputer on a large printed circuit board that included the keyboard as well. I added a power supply and TV monitor, along with one of those inexpensive cassette recorders to save programs and data, such as my stock portfolio. When I showed it off to friends, they found it somewhat amusing, but invariably would ask the question, “What exactly do you use it for?”
Today, no one need ask such a question about the PC found in
most homes and all offices. The same goes for the Internet, the power and depth
of which increases daily. Broadband Internet services are growing popularity to
the point that almost 40% of US Internet households use them. Satellite
Internet is a somewhat different beast, and one might dismiss it as a weak
competitor to
In past articles (February 2004, for example) I suggested that satellite-based Internet service is one of our greatest opportunities for industry growth and innovation. A first step in this development was the successful launch last July of Telesat F2, a Boeing 702 spacecraft with 45 Ka-band spot beams. As one of the few Ka band satellites to be born of the 1990’s grab of new orbit-spectrum, Anik F2 represents a milestone and watershed. To understand why, let’s examine this from three perspectives: the space segment, the ground segment, and the application system.
Space Segment for
Satellite Internet
The prospects for advanced broadband satellites seem to languish almost ten years after the “land rush” for Ka band. The underlying efforts by Hughes, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Alcatel, Astrium, ViaSat, Motorola and others have enhanced the technology base for digital processing and complex phased array antennas. Large spacecraft vehicles, capable of almost 20 kW of raw end-of-life power, present opportunities for greater satellite performance and more usable bandwidth. Ambitious projects like Astrolink, Spaceway, Teledesic and Skybridge, cannot now be counted among active ventures in consumer or corporate Internet. At least one Astrolink satellite was nearly completed by team-members Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman; however, the program was halted before the first launch. Spaceway, the oldest of the group, almost followed a similar path at Boeing, but the new owner of the project, The DIRECTV Group, recently announced that they will adapt the mission for much-needed local program distribution capacity. The versatility of the processor and phased array design facilitates redirection; yet, Spaceway could eventually address a two-way communications market and therefore the Internet.
Spot beam satellites at Ku band recently have been launched for the local distribution market, but with analog bent pipe transponders. On-board processing and phased arrays can be implemented at Ka band to provoke a new wave of exploitation of existing orbit slots. As mentioned previously, current Ku-band satellite Internet services like Starband and DirecWay are niche players in remote areas and retail business networks. Starting with perhaps a few hundred thousand satisfied Ku band Internet customers provides a base to exploit new technology and provide bits per second at a lower base cost. Furthermore, rain attenuation is approximately one third, in dB, that at Ka band. This means that satellite power can be shifted from raw link margin over to higher channel data rates (one limitation of current Ku band offerings) and perhaps for higher service reliability.
Developing the Ground
Segment
Ground segment technology for teleports and user terminals
has advanced considerably in the past ten years. From the terminal side, who
would have thought of a broadband
While terminal prices are falling, the cost and complexity
of the central earth station/hub/teleport are stable. Antennas, power
amplifiers, up- and down-converters, and monitor and control systems remain at
the same level in technological and investment terms. These delopements are
merely at what network architects call
the Physical Layer, which is the bottom of Open Systems Interconnection
(
Applications for
Satellite Internet
It’s obvious now that users in the consumer, business and government sectors continuously find new ways to exploit the Internet. We’ve moved beyond Web browsing to e-commerce and corporate Intranets, and now the concept of open collaboration is upon us. The latter includes internal services to support distributed teams that span distance and organizational boundaries. Applications include video conferencing, virtual meetings, concurrent engineering, and automated product and service delivery. Selecting the best-in-breed software tools and making them function in an interoperable manner has been quite a challenge. Yet, it must be done with excellent technical performance in terms of high speed data transfer and ease of use. At the same time, using organizations demand secure environments that protect data and control who can access their systems.
We in the satellite industry are what IT people call “infrastructure types”. The opposite of this is represented by companies who innovate through software development and network management. A good example is how Cisco sells products and provides much of its technical documentation and training – all through the medium of the Internet itself. But, we satellite infrastructure types are being driven to application innovation in order to meet the market in broadcasting (DBS and S-DARS) and now the Internet (discussed below). At the same time, the Cisco’s of the Internet economy may realize that satellite communications offers unique abilities to serve enterprises and individuals on a continental and nearly-seamless basis. What we have is application married to infrastructure, both space and ground.
One-way multimedia content distribution is now with us and relevant for some interesting possibilities. For The DIRECTV Group, Spaceway could represent the entertainment “vehicle” of the decade. And Internet may become as closely tied to satellite communications as broadcast video and sound now seem to be. With widescreen displays and caching set-top boxes, television will probably move to a new level of interest and utility. Interestingly, what we do with our home computer today could be as odd as what my friends thought of mine some 25 years ago.
Satellite Internet to
Come
From a business perspective, what satellite Internet can do is offer a medium that provides more focus on customers as opposed to products. As a case in point, digital retail solutions from JSAT International allow a private satellite network to deliver customized content to hundreds or thousands of commercial locations. Stores, automobile dealerships and financial service establishments can positively influence their clients by informing, educating and entertaining. What we have is the prospect of creating movie-like entertainment the same way many of us create and update web pages. Provision can be made for special content delivered to groupings of locations or even one location, and even that location can tailor its content off of the national feed.
We paint an attractive picture from today’s satellite, ground segment and application palate. For an idea, walk into a Wal-Mart and see what they’ve done with Wal-Mart TV – a melding of Fox News Channel with targeted content for Wal-Mart promotion and information. This has gone from the old model of announcing a K-Mart Blue Light Special, using only the store speaker system, to custom TV with entertaining video and useful content. What’s next is up to the imagination, because satellite Internet holds much more that what we can scratch from the surface.
