High Throughput Capacity Brings More Consumers, Challenges To Satellite Industry, HTS Companies Say

The military has a “growing appetite for information and data flow,” said Col. Andrew Weate, chief of the Architecture and Analysis Division for the Defense Department. Military operations require ubiquitous capability, he said. The military also requires trunking, video, voice and other services that consumers want, he said. There is an opportunity to use HTS capacity in areas that are “contested,” he said. “That contested environment is one where we expect increased jamming, increased threats to our cybernetworks,” and increased opportunities for enemies to act in the space realm, Weate said. The DOD has the challenge of understanding the opportunities for globally portable solutions, he said. Because “we don’t know where we're going to fight, we don’t know how much we're going to need and we don’t know what we'll need looking 10 years into the future,” he said. The affordability of HTS capacity will continue to be a driving factor in the constrained budget environment, he added.

The military needs to be able to communicate while moving and in areas where existing infrastructure isn’t operational, said Patrick Rayermann, Astrium senior director-business development. Satellite communications can enhance security, but conventional systems won’t keep up with the need, he said. Commercial companies “are key partners in providing DOD the satcom infrastructure it needs, and HTS systems will be important to that growth,” he said. But early systems like ViaSat-1 and Jupiter-1, “in and of themselves, are probably not the solution,” he said: Satellite operators have to take a prudent look at how to build systems with military considerations, and then “employ those new capabilities in ways that make sense for a military warfighter."

In-flight broadband must be completely seamless, said John Guidon, Row44 chief technology officer. There needs to be a general agreement in the HTS community for mobility, he said. “With so much capacity on the satellites, the distribution becomes a more challenging step.” There are holes in HTS developments, Guidon said. “They're economically predicated on static things.” The consumer broadband experience can be improved by building acceleration or specialized ground infrastructure, “rather than trying to do things in the modem,” Guidon said. “We'd like to find a way to make these modems more roamable.” This method could help providers avoid having to qualify multiple modems to achieve their objectives, he said: “That will probably impact the adoption of HTS in the global airline industry."

Satellite “complements wireless very nicely and provides value to our customer base,” said Richard Swardh, Ericsson business development director. The company uses satellite systems to help customers with broadcast distribution and to help its mobile customers provide core network infrastructure, he said. With the advent of HTS, “we will open the floodgates over the next few years when it comes to satellite connected base stations delivering services all over the world,” Swardh said.

With the evolution of HTS, the government will have to be more aggressive in figuring out how to address licensing regulatory regimes, said Kathryn Martin, director at Access Partnership, a firm that helps military and commercial entities obtain spectrum and service rights in foreign markets. For users, like service providers or resellers, they need a clear understanding of spectrum allocations and the restrictions in other countries, she said. As HTS evolves and accumulates many more consumers, “there’s an even greater need that the regulatory environment be simple and user friendly and support the types of applications that are out there,” she said. The reforms of satellite export controls and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations could be a positive step, she said: Depending on the implementation and the steps that are taken, “people are optimistic that it will help to support the U.S. industry for satellite operators and equipment manufacturers."

The role of satellite communications in emergency situations also can be enhanced by high-throughput satellites, satellite executives and emergency responders said during another panel. The satellite industry’s role in such situations include emergency preparation, resiliency and response, and recovery, said Tony Bardo, Hughes assistant vice president-government solutions. Months after Superstorm Sandy, “we were still in certain locations being the primary provider five to 15 miles away from New York City because the terrestrial [network] had not been restored,” he said.