{"id":75207,"date":"2015-01-21T00:29:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T16:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/mobile-trending-satellites-bright-broadband-future\/"},"modified":"2015-01-21T00:29:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-20T16:29:27","slug":"mobile-trending-satellites-bright-broadband-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/mobile-trending-satellites-bright-broadband-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile #Trending: Satellite\u2019s Bright Broadband Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faster service speeds and growing satellite capacity have combined with gargantuan demand for a broadband and data market that puts satellite center stage as the world\u2019s best chance to provide global, mobile connectivity. Analysts and satellite executives from Hughes and ViaSat to Inmarsat and SES agree that satellite is much more than fiber\u2019s backup. There\u2019s no chance demand will slow soon, and satellite has much work to do as the power behind all data that moves with mobile devices, worldwide.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Broadband<\/p>\n

Connectivity for mobile devices is now available in places people never expected yet have long hoped to find it. From free, fast access for passengers flying regional airlines to ship decks where sailors take breaks with connected smartphones, the Internet reaches far beyond Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and fiber. Mark Dankberg, CEO of ViaSat, espouses the idea of fiber and satellite as two pieces that must go hand-in-hand to connect the world, while Michele Franci, CTO of Inmarsat, cautions the satellite industry against viewing itself as a potential sole-bearer of all connectivity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are getting into a world of extreme connectivity at this level where no single technology or no single network can supply the need. We will get into a network-of-networks environment where we will bring a piece of it \u2014 the piece that we do well \u2014 but we should not try and have the ambition to compete with some of the terrestrial solutions in areas where they make more sense,\u201d Franci says.<\/p>\n

Satellite industry efforts to connect the world are already benefiting previously unconnected areas. In rural India, Hughes Network Systems worked with the government to enable mobile banking through connecting bank branches throughout India and 50,000 Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). In Mexico, Hughes is at work with the Secretariat of Communications and Transport to connect 5,000 Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs) as part of the Bicentenario project to deliver Internet connectivity to community centers.<\/p>\n

With Brazil and Mexico leading, Northern Sky Research (NSR) predicts that Latin America could surpass Asia and the Pacific as the third largest broadband access market in the world after the U.S. and Europe. Regional markets are captivating satellite operators while, in the wake of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370, Inmarsat has taken a leading role from a safety perspective, by offering free periodic position location services to all airlines equipped with SwiftBroadband connectivity.<\/p>\n

Inmarsat will launch into the world of high-speed broadband with the Ka-band Global Xpress satellite constellation to launch in the summer of 2015 while, in the maritime sector, the launch of O3b Networks meant Royal Caribbean passengers \u2014 all 8,000 at a time \u2014 could connect while on vacation. In addition to cruise liners, ship crews are also seeing connectivity that Aslan Tricha, SES vice president of infrastructure solutions, says has made a big difference in the market.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Connectivity] allows merchant ship crews running cargo across oceans for weeks at a time who are relying on satellite to connect via Skype with their families or watch a movie over Netflix after a long day at sea. Crew welfare is a huge driver of satellite capacity aboard ships and a huge competitive advantage for ship owners who want to retain the best crews,\u201d Tricha says.<\/p>\n

Satellite\u2019s Biggest Market: Consumer Broadband<\/h2>\n

Prashant Butani, senior analyst at NSR, calls the trio of speed, voice quality and coverage the \u201cHoly Trinity of broadband data today,\u201d and points out that broadband data is moving from the status of high-end service to consumer commodity. It\u2019s up to the operators to make sure connectivity is ready to go not only around the block, but around the world.<\/p>\n

Dankberg and Mike Cook, Hughes\u2019 senior vice president of sales and marketing for the North American division, agree that the companies\u2019 combined market equates to 1.7 million total users \u2014 and that\u2019s only 10 percent of what they consider the potential to be. David Rehbehn, Vice President, International Sales and Marketing, Hughes says that the company projects 14 million U.S. households to be either unserved or underserved in the U.S. market which, despite other fast-growing regions, still by far leads in first place.<\/p>\n

Beyond the North American market where both ViaSat and Hughes focus, Dankberg has his eye on backhaul, a very interesting area for satellite operators to partner with telecoms companies. \u201cWhat we\u2019re also looking at is how could we address the other extreme of markets where people don\u2019t have their own Internet service at home but their main source of Internet is mobile services and connecting on mobile devices through Wi-Fi,\u201d he says. \u201cParts of Central America or the Caribbean, countries like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Guatemala and some of those countries, may actually be really good markets for Wi-Fi based services as opposed to antenna at your home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dankberg adds that current backhaul in remote areas is in sore need of a makeover. \u201cAs you go to higher and higher speeds for mobile, [current 1G and 2G] backhaul becomes more of a limiting factor. Right now what you\u2019re seeing, especially in Africa and parts of Asia, is that satellite provides backhaul, primarily for GSM services, for voice and text,\u201d Dankberg says.<\/p>\n

Existing 2G and 1G networks in those regions of Africa and Asia are too slow to provide real Internet services: high-speed data and broadband. As a result, Dankberg believes mobile operators will use satellite service as backhaul for a chance to provide minimal connectivity \u2014 voice and text services \u2014 for areas that otherwise would have no connectivity at all. As more satellite service reaches those regions, and particularly very fast networks like ViaSat 2, Dankberg says ViaSat will begin testing to potentially enter the market for bona fide satellite connectivity across Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n

Further characterizing the attractive qualities of those regions, Dankberg points out that Firefox and Android smartphones are now so low cost that end users are skipping the feature phone and jumping straight to the smartphone; he sees stiff demand for connectivity as the inevitable result. Franci also reports the opportunity for mobile is enticing, as does Hughes, where Rehbehn says Hughes has found backhaul opportunity in North America even, in addition to the potential in developing regional markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThus far, the cellular backhaul market has been primarily outside the United States and in developing areas and, to this point, it\u2019s been a market to support the 2G and 2.5 G cellular systems. What we\u2019re now starting to see is telco carriers looking to extend 3G services into rural and remote areas. That\u2019s where satellite \u2014 and I think also [High Throughput Satellites] HTS \u2014 has a particularly good role to provide,\u201d Rehbehn says.<\/p>\n

Inmarsat will look to make equivalent impact in mobile with portable handheld L-band equipment as effective as fixed VSAT. The reason for this, Franci explains, is that Inmarsat is attempting to dematerialize the satellite access hardware piece for good. \u201cWe all want to keep using our same device \u2026 and not have to change devices depending on where we are \u2014 these are some of the solutions that we are developing in order to support that,\u201d Franci says.<\/p>\n

Tricha reports SES is watching the proliferation of 4G LTE and mobile data offloading, and has already made moves on pursuing backhaul. \u201cMobile providers are coming to SES to provide bandwidth via satellite to the mobile towers, the cell phone towers. We see a lot of interest \u2014 whether it\u2019s a Wi-Fi offload network or a 4G LTE network \u2014 and that\u2019s pretty much global,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Now #Trending!<\/h2>\n

Butani has identified the \u201cfear of missing out\u201d as a major driving force behind people\u2019s willingness to pay for broadband everywhere, with the second driving factor being Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). But on the flip side of wild data demand is the fact that end users expect the same level of service no matter their location.<\/p>\n

This means satellite operators need to ensure the same experience for users no matter where they are connecting. Butani predicts telcos will eventually move in for joint ventures with satellite providers or even to acquire them as the most experienced players in the communications sector. Inmarsat sees a hybrid Air-To-Ground (ATG) and S-band satellite network as a solution instead, and has released their version of this new hybrid ATG-satellite under the name of Europasat, a network aimed at replicating in Europe the North American success Gogo has captured.<\/p>\n

Hybrid networks like Inmarsat and Gogo offer some avenues to help satellite operators learn more about their customers, an area that Philip Bates, principal at Analysys Mason, pinpoints as needing work. \u201cSatellite operators can typically only locate you within a particular spot beam, which may cover several states. Sure, the satellite operators can in principle track which websites you visit and what you do there to build up a personal profile that might be of interest to advertisers, but can we really expect them to do a better job at this than Google or Facebook?\u201d he says. Cisco is perhaps the current master of this game, having deployed a smart airport in Copenhagen that harvests GPS signals from smartphones to monitor passengers\u2019 experiences, suggesting shops to them as well as sending notifications when it\u2019s time to board. Franci says this is one reason Inmarsat is very happy to partner with the network expert. \u201cThey have this vision of billions of devices interconnected over a few years and they are developing for us our Global Xpress core network, it\u2019s actually in operation now, already,\u201d says Franci.<\/p>\n

Though Cisco was unable to respond by the time of deadline, Franci explains the two companies are at work on \u201chuge, automatic machine-to-machine data transfer capability. A typical application is surveillance, monitoring and so on, but you can extend it to all sorts of industrial applications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many airlines have also begun to collect data, and systems like ViaSat\u2019s are at the forefront of enabling the process. Dankberg says increased performance is already earning rave reviews in the skies that might float ViaSat into maritime as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the competitive dynamics in the [maritime and oil and gas] markets are changing. What we think our ultimate offer to the market will be not just that we provide ocean coverage, but that we have capacity economics that are very materially different from everybody else\u2019s \u2014 and ViaSat 2 is really the first manifestation of that,\u201d says Dankberg.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Hughes is involved in connecting competitor Southwest Airlines through Global Eagle Entertainment. Cook says though Hughes is significantly upping its speed factor with the launch of EchoStar19 in mid-2016, capacity is still its number one priority. \u201cThe biggest desire from our customer base is for more capacity. Today we\u2019re typically at say, 10 to 15 megabits per second. We\u2019re probably going to see speeds in the 15 to 20 or 20-plus megabits per second range,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The all Ka-band ViaSat 2 will deliver, by comparison, more than 250 gigabits per second with much, much lower bandwidth costs, according to Dankberg. NewSat is using Ka band a little differently, says David Ball, NewSat CTO. \u201cNewSat is just treating Ka-band as the next frequency band that the satellite industry has adopted to meet demand for connectivity. C-band is already heavily utilized globally and the available Ku-band capacity is also very well absorbed with successful DTH platforms and enterprise applications,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Ball believes the user\u2019s quest for bandwidth, as he calls it, has taken the industry to Ka, but disagrees with operators who say this is only suitable for residential broadband applications. \u201cThis is absolutely not the case,\u201d says Ball. \u201cKa-band should be viewed as simply a frequency band that can be used to support traditional FSS applications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsat is focused on markets in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa, where Ball says there is major push for broadband for enterprise and education across the countries satellite Jabiru 1 supports. \u201cWe\u2019re working with telecoms service providers to use our Ka-band capacity to bridge capital cities into rural areas, closing the digital divide,\u201d says Ball.<\/p>\n

Future Expectations<\/h2>\n

While Hughes has recently discovered how to shoot transmission signals through the rotor blade of a helicopter with new waveform technology, Kymeta\u2019s highly anticipated flat-panel antenna could not only drive down the overall cost of VSAT services, but even enable applications for connected cars, says Rehbehn. Cook sees wearables and health monitors as an inevitable market, despite slow consumer adoption \u2014 and if Google glass doesn\u2019t make the cut, he points out, the FitBit already has.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese devices are uploading data into the cloud and they\u2019re increasingly sharing data with each other. As always, it takes a little longer for the actual success \u2026 those things are already proving to be quite popular and will become more integrated,\u201d says Cook.<\/p>\n

Smart airports, bracelets and contact lenses that can do all the work of Google glass without the fashion stigma \u2014 satellite should expect it all. We just need the bandwidth, first. VS<\/p>\n

\n

Chelsea Bryan is a freelance aerospace journalist and a former junior editor of Avionics Magazine and Aviation Today. She writes both in-depth and shorter investigative industry news, and you can follow her stories as they develop at @blackandbluept2.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faster service speeds and growing satellite capacity have combined with gargantuan demand for a broadband and data market that puts satellite center stage as the world\u2019s best chance to provide global, mobile connectivity. Analysts and satellite executives from Hughes and ViaSat to Inmarsat and SES agree that satellite is much more than fiber\u2019s backup. There\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}