[Via Satellite 12-09-2014] Hunter Communications<\/b>, a satellite communications provider in Canada, is readying for the launch of its first hosted payload on the Eutelsat 115 West B satellite early next year. The company, which provides satellite capacity from the \u201cBig Four\u201d and the majority of regional operators, has been operating over North America on Satmex 5 (later renamed Eutelsat 115 West A) as one of the spacecraft\u2019s original clients for several years. As it neared the end of its life expectancy, Satmex<\/b> shifted the satellite into an inclined orbit approximately a year and a half ago. Hunter Communications has carved a niche in the Canadian market through the inclined satellite, and is preparing for a push into mobility with its high-power Ku-band hosted payload next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada is a bit of a unique market. There is certainly less demand for traditional Ku-band data services in comparison to the U.S. \u2014 because the U.S. has about 10 times the population,\u201d Brent Perrott, president of Hunter Communications told Via Satellite<\/i>. \u201cThe supply is just that limited in Canada and has been for so long that our small payload is probably coming at an opportune time.\u201d
\nThe hosted payload will provide Ku-band capacity over the United States and Canada with a footprint that is tweaked from the original Satmex beam. Perrott said the power and focal point of the beam is much further north than other satellites today, providing capacity over the Northwest Passage trade route as it opens. The hosted payload\u2019s coverage also highlights Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really wanted to cover the maritime market on that West Coast. Cruise ships ply up and down the Inside Passage on the West Coast of British Columbia,\u201d said Perrott. \u201cWe have a lot of fishing and shipping vessels around the Aleutian Islands, and over to the Pacific for more shipping.\u201d
\nPerrott added that Hunter Communications is also planning a greater emphasis on In-Flight Connectivity (IFC) for aircraft transiting through Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cInternet on commercial aircraft is going to soon become a norm and a requirement, and so for any airline traffic going transpacific or transatlantic, many of those planes are flying quite far north in Canada and Alaska. Having an entire beam with concentrated northern coverage is important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hunter Communications has worked with Panasonic Avionics<\/b> in the past, whose eXConnect platform is based on Ku band. Perrott said the company is in discussions with Panasonic Avionics on using the hosted payload\u2019s capacity.<\/p>\n
Another benefit of having the dedicated hosted payload on Eutelsat 115 West B is that the spacecraft\u2019s orbital position has four degrees of spacing between the next satellite with Canadian coverage. Perrott said adjacent satellite constraints made it difficult to place a traditional Ku-band beam over Canada on the Satmex 6 or Satmex 8 satellites. He expressed optimism that the strength of the beam would make the payload well suited for mobility.<\/p>\n
\u201c[There are] a lot of technical advantages when you are four degrees away from your nearest neighbor,\u201d he said. \u201cIn terms of being able to use more power, that advantages smaller antennas \u2014 the sub one-meter antennas \u2014 so for anything aeronautical, or land-mobile antennas of 60 cm, it is a particular advantage that translates into lower operating costs on the satellite.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[Via Satellite 12-09-2014] Hunter Communications, a satellite communications provider in Canada, is readying for the launch of its first hosted payload on the Eutelsat 115 West B satellite early next year. The company, which provides satellite capacity from the \u201cBig Four\u201d and the majority of regional operators, has been operating over North America on Satmex […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75480,"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-75479","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\/75479"}],"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=75479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}