Keeping Next-Gen Mobile Broadband from Terrorists a Concern
COLORADO SPRINGS -- Inmarsat and Mobile Satellite Ventures executives touted the mobile capabilities of their current and next generation voice and data systems to a different audience here at the National Space Symposium -- military officials in full uniform rather than potential investors in suits and ties -- and they received a different response. Queries about data rates, handset size, price and video capabilities took a back seat to one oft-asked question: What are commercial satellite companies doing to keep new mobile technologies out of terrorist hands?
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Mobile satellite networks’ breadth and bandwidth are up, speeding mobile voice and data services to first responders, military, journalists and others -- potentially including terrorists -- who enlist satellite communication to connect to the world from remote or compromised locales. ViaSat Gen. Mgr.-Govt. Broadband Rick VanderMeulen said Connexion by Boeing is operating ViaSat’s Ku-band broadband terminals at 500 Mph onboard international flights, and the military is testing ViaSat terminals at 100 Mph on helicopters. Inmarsat’s new BGAN service, used by BBC reporters, can function at 60 Mph, and Inmarsat plans to unveil MSS broadband for airlines and ships within a year. The hybrid satellite/terrestrial network MSV has on the drawing board could deliver 2 Mbps on the move via terrestrial repeaters.
“This is not communication on the pause, it’s on the move,” said ViaSat’s VanderMeulen. But most satellite operators who sell voice and data services work by a wholesale model, leasing chunks of capacity to integrators or directly to customers. “Operators come to us continually and say, ‘We don’t know what’s going over our satellite -- how many trunking links, telephone links… They lease capacity out and then it’s out of their control,” said Northern Sky Research Pres. Christopher Baugh. To control the bandwidth’s ultimate use, “you have to go down a level,” Baugh said.
Mobile Satellite Ventures, with hq in Reston, Va., is subject to CALEA rules, said CEO Carson Agnew. “We have to deal with any lawful intercept. All of our traffic goes through a hub where U.S. persons can be served with a U.S. subpoena,” Agnew said. MSV tallies 170,000 users of its current voice and data service and most are in transportation or public safety, Agnew said. But MSV hopes to have millions of users on its next generation system. The firm will target regular consumers, and the cellular industry, with the wireless network it’s planning in space and on the ground. “Video, VoIP, e-mail, downloading images, movie clips -- it will all be possible,” Agnew said.
Inmarsat Vp-Advanced Systems & Vp-Govt. Solutions Eugene Jilg said Inmarsat “sells its service by the minute, and we know who’s using our satellites.” Inmarsat’s Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) service, which covers 85% of the world’s landmass, rolled out in Europe, the Middle East and Asia late last year, Jilg said. The Americas are next, if Inmarsat can get the FCC’s blessing. Between 400 and 500 terminals capable of receiving data at 380 kbps and transmitting at 240 kbps with a simultaneous voice circuit almost anywhere in the world have been sold to customers so far via Inmarsat resellers, Jilg said. At the end of the day, for a London-based global satellite operator like Inmarsat, who also counts the U.S. govt. as its largest customer, “it’s a classic issue of civil liberties versus how do you allow all good guys to have the human rights and technologies we want, but not the bad guys?” -- Adrianne Kroepsch
Space Symposium Notes…
Mobile Satellite Ventures is talking to Motorola, Nortel, Alcatel/Lucent and Cisco about developing terrestrial wireless infrastructure for an L-band system, MSV CEO Carson Agnew said: “It will be up to them how they pull together the integration job we give to them.” MSV has enlisted Boeing to build 3 satellites and ViaSat to develop a ground- based beam forming system.
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Nothing will change for International Launch Systems commercial satellite customers as a result of Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s United Launch Alliance (ULA), ILS Pres. Mark Albrecht told the National Space Symposium. But commercial customers should brace for a demand-drive price spike, he said. Govt. launch sales may change, but ILS will approach the commercial marketplace “in the same way,” Albrecht said: “Nothing about ULA is going to impact the pricing of Atlas. But we are entering a period of time where the commercial marketplace will experience a spike in price, a short term increase in prices for our launch services not driven by ULA per se.”
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The DVB-RCS standard “still isn’t truly plug-and-play, and still isn’t at the price point some would've hoped for,” said Northern Sky Research Pres. Christopher Baugh. “The whole subject of standards is an interesting one,” said ViaSat’s Gen. Mgr.-Govt. Broadband Richard VanderMeulen. DBV-S and DVB-RCS see use in Europe, but Europeans don’t take into account the U.S. DOCSIS standard, which WildBlue uses for its satellite broadband service, VanderMeulen said. And few DVB-S products are used in DVB-S mode, he said: “Standards are really great to launch the start of competition, but them be prepared to watch products exceed your minimums.”