Today
world is lying on mobile and Internet ecosystems together. The proliferation of
web-based mobile applications necessitated mobile broadband access to the
Internet, which rapidly became widely and sufficiently available to users of
mobile devices, as long as they stayed within the service range of their
appropriate terrestrial networks.
Lets
think on the situation from consumer stand point when mobile users got on planes, ships and land-mobiles, the
bandwidth frequency, communication and Internet experience was quite different.
How consumer and enterprise industry approach and dealt with the situation? HTS
(High Throughput Satellite) is one of the approaching solution, which
could be considered to become a game changer for Internet users in the
aeronautical, maritime, and land-mobile market segments. HTS are primarily
deployed to provide broadband Internet access service (point-to-point) to
regions un-served or under served by terrestrial technologies where they can
deliver services comparable to terrestrial services in terms of pricing and
bandwidth. Let's understand what's HTS first? As per Wikipedia, HTS is a classification for
communications satellites that provide at least twice, though usually by a
factor of 20 or more, the total throughput of a classic FSS satellite for the
same amount of allocated orbital spectrum thus significantly reducing
cost-per-bit.
The
advent of high-throughput satellites (HTS) enables network service providers to
offer a new generation of communications solutions. HTS systems combine the
exceptional spectrum efficiency and performance of spot-beam antennas with
ultra-wideband transponders to enable unprecedented levels of bandwidth and
throughput. Each spot beam reuses frequencies in multiple carriers so that a
single HTS spacecraft can provide five to ten times the capacity of traditional
satellites. For the customer, this provides the potential to dramatically
increase data rates, upwards of 100Mbps to a single site and improve
application performance compared to traditional satellite based communications.
While
many current HTS platforms were designed to serve the consumer broadband
market, some are also offering services to government and enterprise markets,
as well as to terrestrial cellular network operators who face growing demand
for broadband backhaul to rural cell sites. For cellular backhaul, the reduced
cost per bit of many HTS platforms creates a significantly more favorable
economic model for wireless operators to use satellite for cellular voice and
data backhaul. Some HTS platforms are designed primarily for the enterprise, telecom
or maritime sectors. HTS can furthermore support point-to-multipoint
applications and even broadcast services such as DTH distribution to relatively
small geographic areas served by a single spot beam. However, in simple terms, HTS is making broadband access better,
cheaper and faster.
Here we look at five main important components of
HTS design strategy are:
- Throughput - total transmitted per seconds
- Efficiency - actually interdependent of throughput requirements
- Coverage - the region being served in spacecraft and geographically
- Architecture - network architecture {Star, Mesh, Loopback…}
- Spectrum/Efficiency - frequency in consideration into the available bandwidth network and characteristics of the spectrum
In business terms, HTS will significantly reduce the
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) compared to yesteryear’s satellite broadband
solutions in the mobile platforms space. More importantly, HTS broadband access
is finally becoming competitive with its terrestrial counterparts in terms of
cost and performance. But the good news is that HTS does not have to compete
with terrestrial solutions in the air, sea and land mobile segments, it just
needs to become as widely available as its terrestrial cousins and support
comparable broadband connectivity in terms of throughput and cost.
Takeaway from experts based on experimental
outcome result and existing case-study report:
· Next
generation High Throughput Satellites include both Ku and Ka [Refer - below
comparison image table].
· There are many different variations
of technologies using the Ka-band frequencies.
· Ka is an appropriate technology for
mass markets and non-industrial markets.
·
Side-by-side technical and cost
comparison of Ka and Ku HTS solutions shows significant technical and cost
challenges with most Ka solutions for customers with high reliability and
availability needs.
·
HTS Ku platforms offer the best
overall performance and value for operations for mission critical, maximum
uptime networks.
Important links to explore
the purpose and needs of HTS are in detail, such as:
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hts-game-changer-bandwidth-run-mobile-platforms-jack-nargundkar
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-throughput_satellite
- http://www.thedigitalship.com/conferences/presentations/2014rotterdam/10_Claude_Rousseau-Research_Director-NSR-France.pdf
- http://www.harriscaprock.com/downloads/HarrisCapRock_WhitePaper-Ka-Ku_Analysis.pdf
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrN4dtcpO8k
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