In Broadcast - November 2020 - 20

20

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 10 - Issue 11 | November 2020

InSAT

LEO Flies Under The 5G Radar
Communications play an indisputably
vital part of modern life, and as current
events show, satellite capabilities are
more critical than ever, Contributing
Editor Adrian Pennington reports...

5

G is the biggest buzzword of the
day in the mobile industry, in
the satellite biz the buzz is about low
Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations. "LEO
satellites are an exciting opportunity,"
says William Mudge, Director of
Satellite Capacity and Technology,
Speedcast. "For the first time, satellite
can provide an office-like experience
anywhere in the world - it is like making
a call from one city to another in the
same country."
Yet geostationary and Medium Earth
Orbit satellites have not had their day.
Both have their place in the market.
Broadcast is one example: a MEO link
can deliver one signal to millions or
homes or cable headends.
The transition to 5G is going to
be revolutionary for how we can
transmit data but it is not the answer
to anything. If a customer is not
working inside the cellular systems,
it doesn't provide the coverage they
need, whether on a cruise ship in
international waters, a mining camp
or an energy platform. That's where
something like LEO fits really well,
delivering an at-home experience
with none of the delays experienced
with GEO satellites operating far from
Earth.
Speedcast
has
technologies,
including SIGMA and SD-WAN, that
can make the right choice of network
for you. While far from the cellular
network, Speedcast automatically
selects the GEO, MEO or LEO service
that best meets the requirement.
When 4G LTE or 5G becomes available,
it can detect that and automatically
switch to the less expensive option.
If the cellular connection fails for any
reason, it switches to the always-on
satellite connection.
"As the technology keeps evolving,
our job is to make sure that customers
get the best of breed solution all the
time," says Mudge.
The arrival of LEO, MEO, and flat
panel antennas has seen the market
seek solutions to achieve effective use
of the spectrum and provide higher
bandwidth for matching demand with
reliable network technology.

Integrasys created Beam Budget, a
unique solution that enables accurate
calculation of Link Budgets supporting
LEO constellations and flat panel
antennas. According to the company,
Beam Budget has availability for any
frequency band, including Q and V
where high frequencies are more
affected by atmospheric events.
Thanks to Beam Budget, networks of
small satellite constellations can be
designed more effectively.
It also has a range of low profile of
flat panel antennas designed to make
installations easier and faster. Their
greatest advantage is the ability to
create multibeams, which are able
to point to different constellations
simultaneously - driving Connected Car
applications, for example.
5G interference signals (and new
mobile phone networks such as LTE,
Wi-Max) are powerful enough to
saturate sensitive C-band satellite
receiving
systems,
causing
a
potential for total loss of service for
broadcasters.
Norsat International has launched
products to address this. The 3200sBPF PLL LNB (optimal for maritime
terminal applications), combines an
LNB and a Band Pass Filter and can
switch in and out the filtering between
full and concatenated portions of
the C-Band spectrum. This allows
customers to use the full C-band when
they are at sea and switch in
the 5G filtering when
they are close to shore.
This is complementary
to Norsat's existing Band
Pass Filter series of 5G
Interference solutions.
"As
5G
wireless
networks grow, there's
an increasing need for
specialised products to
mitigate
interference
from 5G base stations,"
states Dr. Amiee Chan,
CEO of Norsat. "We
are excited to further
help users of C-band
satellite
services
reject 5G interference

and to continue to be a part of the
coordination efforts to ensure a
smooth transition of 5G into the
C-band spectrum."
Such solutions are being used
by China's Jiangsu broadcasting
to prevent 5G interference on
current broadcasting stations. The
broadcaster, headquartered in Nanjing
and operating across China, was facing
a lot of interference, with viewers
receiving blurred images and videos.
JSCN was rapidly losing viewers,
and its core competitive advantage
of clear broadcasting services was
declining. This was because 5G inband transmissions received by the
broadcast antennas drove regular
LNBs into saturation and produced
unwanted intermodulation products
which degraded the desired signal
from the satellite. Adding Norsat's 5G
products however strengthened JSCN's
competitiveness for signal delivering.
The design of new generation of
satellites - multibeam HTS, LEO and
MEO constellations - needs to be
highly cost-effective and adaptive to
the actual demand. Beam-hopping
provides a level of
flexibility that makes it
possible to increase served
traffic, reduce areas of
unmet
demand
while
enabling the reduction
of power consumption
on-board.
In particular, SatixFy's
beam
forming
chip
technology disrupts the
satellite
communication
industry
by
creating
the
basis
for
digital
electronically
steered
antennas, made for mobile
The S-IDU is SatixFy's VSAT modem
with industry leading performance
and flexibility in a compact package

platforms and for new and existing
satellite constellations.
With OneWeb, SatixFy plans to add
a digital technology pathway payload
with beam hopping capability as
OneWeb commercialises its global
communications broadband services
via LEO satellites at the end of 2021.
The beam hopping capability also
enables seamless handover for mobile
devices, between beams and satellites.
An example would be an Aero
terminal for In-Flight Connectivity,
able to operate on both LEO and GEO
simultaneously and maintaining makebefore-break connectivity between the
rising and setting satellites. Maximum
capacity can be directed from multiple
sources to hot-spots like busy airports.
SatixFy has also developed the first
modem to fully support the entire
DVB-S2X standard including all beam
hopping modes over LEO, MEO and
GEO systems.
"The Sx3099 chip is first of its kind
supporting LEO/GEO orbits with
multiple modems capable of very high
throughput," stated Yoel Gat, SatixFy
Space System CEO. "It has provisions
for both fixed and mobile applications
and can serve as a baseline for future
broadband satellite communication
applications."
Gilat Telecom is now offering the
Intelsat FlexMove managed service for
land mobile connectivity. It enables
customers to connect to the internet,
private data networks and cloud
services from virtually anywhere in the
world, including while on-the-move, or
on-the-pause at a temporary site.
"With the Intelsat FlexMove service,
we can help our customers quickly
and easily deploy mission-critical
communications and maintain a
seamless connection to the people and
applications they rely on," says Gilat
Telecom VP, Ami Schneider.
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.speedcast.com https://youtube.com/watch?v=mjtHNGFRaxA https://youtube.com/watch?v=mjtHNGFRaxA
In Broadcast - November 2020

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