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ViaSat gives war effort a boost
Airplanes passing silently over enemy territory in Iraq and Afghanistan record and transmit videos in real time back to intelligence experts in the United States with the help of Carlsbad satellite communications company ViaSat.
Because those videos help inform military decisions, picture quality is extremely important, said Larry Taylor, the head of Government Satellite Communications Systems at the company.
To boost the resolution and speed of these videos, ViaSat recently doubled the data rate its equipment can transmit, from 512 to 1024 kilobytes. This upgrade was made at the request of the Department of Defense, one of the company’s biggest customers, Taylor said.
The company also recently improved military planes’ ability to send data back to the ground.
“Traditionally when we think of Internet access, we think about a simple mouse-click to load a complex Web page, which is a lot of data going out to a remote facility, but very little coming back,” Taylor said. “But with the Department of Defense, they are actually creating the data as videos or other intelligence information collected on an airplane, and that information has to be relayed to analysis centers on the ground.”
Giving an airplane a wireless connection is like hitting a moving target, because the plane’s antennas are never in the same place. ViaSat accomplishes this task with a network of 13 hubs on the ground connected to 13 satellites, which create a “worldwide footprint” of wireless connection, Taylor said.
Boosting the planes’ data speed will allow them to send videos with higher resolution and more frames per second, both of which are important for military intelligence activities, Taylor said. Greater resolution means the video’s screen can be enlarged without creating a pixilated, or blurry, image, and increasing a video’s frames makes it smoother.
Although ViaSat originally only supplied its satellite connection technology to commercial vehicles, including business jets and trains, the Department of Defense asked the company to adapt its technology to military airplanes.
ViaSat’s satellite antenna and software are installed in more than 100 military aircraft and more than 100 business aircraft, Taylor said. The company is also expanding its reach into boats, and plans to have software in more than 750 maritime craft soon.
The average cost to equip military planes with the antenna and software to transmit videos is about $350,000, and ViaSat also has government contracts to work on upgrading the planes, he said. The company brings in about $50 million a year between its commercial and military customers, but Taylor said that number is expected to grow.
The company’s data rate from the air to the ground is also expected to grow to 2 megabytes “and beyond,” he said. It plans to transition to higher frequency bands and launch a new satellite next year.
BusinessCom Launches Evolution VSAT Services
BusinessCom, a global satellite Internet service provider, has launched iDirect Evolution enabled satellite Internet access services on the Loral Skynet Telstar-11N and the newly launched SES WORLD SKIES NSS-12 geostationary satellites. The new Evolution services are available on Ku-Band beams covering the Middle East, Iraq and many other countries. The new Evolution based services allow customers to enjoy always-on 24/7 broadband satellite Internet access with only a small 1.2m VSAT antenna and 3W block up-converters.
The iDirect Evolution platform selected by BusinessCom is an ideal choice for multi-service broadband satellite Internet access. The Evolution X3 modem is based on the DVB-S2 standard that delivers very high spectrum efficiency, and is backed up by ACM (Adaptive Coding and Modulation) technology.
The ACM automatically changes the outbound modulation and FEC overhead per each remote VSAT terminal on the fly, depending on the actual rain fade margins observed, allowing Evolution VSAT terminals to stay in the network even during heavy rainfalls. The return channel is based on a patented iDirect Deterministic TDMA technology that enables true QoS (Quality of Service) support.
The primary markets for the newly launched services, which complement BusinessCom’s flagmanship PEP-iDirect solution, are demanding DTH and SOHO users, Internet cafes, SCADA and telemetry applications, and small to medium-sized Wireless Hot Spots. Because the Ku-Band Evolution X3 satellite based equipment is much more affordable than the C-Band PEP-iDirect VSAT kits, BusinessCom quality service just got one step closer to a consumer market.
With a built-in Ethernet interface, additional key features of the newly launched BusinessCom VSAT services include support for a rich set of IP protocols (including both TCP and UDP), multicasting, DHCP and NAT, built-in TCP and HTTP acceleration, advanced QoS and traffic prioritization and seamless terrestrial integration.
Satellite Internet Service in Afghanistan
TS2 Satellite Technologies company is introducing new broadband services on Eutelsat EB4 & W6 satellites to the Afghan market.
These types of telecommunication products are mainly used by the companies that execute contracts in Asia, as well as by the soldiers that are stationed in Afghanistan. Purchased bands gives TS2 unlimited possibilities of configuration and setting any telecommunication connections from the Near East region and South-Western Asia.
The broadband service offer two-way high-speed Internet access with no phone lines, no cable, no dial-up modem. It’s always online, available virtually anywhere, and affordable. The offered satellite system is ideally suited for broadband requirements such as Internet and VPN access to enterprise networks, as well as real-time VoIP and video conferencing.
The Internet connection can be shared with other users via wireless or wired network. Most soldiers deploy with a laptop in hand and a hookup to the Internet in their barracks. This is especially important for the many who are married, and have young children. The Internet access has resulted in major morale improvements. Troops no longer feel cut off from home.
Not all the Internet connectivity is just for staying in touch with the folks back home. The troops in Afghanistan use the Internet a lot for professional tasks, and not all of them are official business. Some troops blog, and many other stay in touch with military friends and associates in other parts of the world. The Internet has made possible many online communities composed of military professionals.
Without the new satellite system, large numbers of Soldiers will be without regular communications for much or most of their time in Afghanistan. The infrastructure is Spartan to non-existent.
More information on http://www.ts2.pl/en/Internet-in-Iraq-and-Afghanistan
Eutelsat’s W6 (formerly W3) satellite is located at 21.5 degrees East featuring 28 simultaneously active transponders. This satellite is ideal for applications such as VSAT networks, broadband Internet and data broadcasting. It is most suitable for companies that require communications between Europe, North Africa, the Sahara, the Middle East and the Gulf region.
The EUROBIRD 4, also called as EB4, is Eutelsat’s one of the satellites that provides coverage from 4 degrees East of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia in Ku-band frequencies.
TS2 Satellite Technologies specializes in providing global satellite access services. Our core business is broadband access to the Internet in areas with poor telecommunications infrastructure and mobile satellite phones communication. The main medium of used transmission is a two-way satellite transfer system, which provides good access to the satellite network in even the least accessible areas. It not only provides a broadband connection but also a wide range of additional data and voice services.
Website: http://www.ts2.pl