by James Careless
Carefully, cautiously, Russia is embracing satellite services. Look across the nation and you will see earth stations connecting oil and gas exploration sites, banks, government offices, schools and even lottery terminals. Following 70 years of regulation-based Soviet rule, the world's largest nation was left with a weakened economy with no real credit structure and technologically impoverished rural areas where communities endure telecommunications challenges. Today, however, capitalism is helping satellite services make inroads in the country.
While improving, Russia's use of satellite services remains well below that of North America and Europe. Even today, thousands of Russian towns and villages lack basic voice telephone service. Still, the times are changing in Russia, as a growing grasp of market economics, pragmatic government rule and gradual liberalization of the telecommunications sector is making it easier for satellite services to take hold. "There's a lot of activity going on in Russia these days," says Chris Leber, ViaSat Inc.'s vice president and general manager of VSAT networks. "We're seeing strong demand for our Linkstar DVB/RCS-based technology as well as our full mesh broadband Linkway product. Most of the demand is coming from the banking and oil and gas sectors."
"All of the new satellite applications are converging onto the IP platform," adds David Owers, Polarsat's director of key accounts. "Whether it's voice, data, Internet access and even videoconferencing, Russian satellite users are increasingly doing it on IP."
Hot Satellite Services In Russia
The advantages of satellites for bridging large distances has not been lost on the Russian oil and gas sector. This is why companies such as Lukoil - Russia's largest oil and gas firm - have adopted satellite communications to link remote gas exploration sites with the company's headquarters. Polarsat has established a 50-site private network for the oil giant using Polarsat's VSATPlus 2 equipment, says Owers. ViaSat has provided ground station equipment, VSAT terminals and satellite services for Lukoil, Leber says.
Russia's Jackpot lottery is another early adopter of satellite communications. Using services provided by the Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC), the country's major domestic satellite communications company, Jackpot has connected 500 lottery terminals nationwide via satellite. The system is run using a Gilat Skystar 360E hub and VSAT earth stations.
Other businesses are gradually making their way onto satellite, as diverse enterprises see satellite's advantages for providing far-flung voice and data communications. Many Russian companies buy their services from RSCC, which buys much of its equipment from Western companies such as Advantech AMT. The Montreal-based manufacturer of microwave communication products, provided a pair of its remotely controlled antenna steering retrofits to RSCC, says Vagan Shakhgildian, Advantech's president. The retrofits were installed in RSCC gateways in Dubna, outside Moscow, and Siberia. Advantech also provided ground station equipment to Russia's Central Bank, Rostelecom and Transtelecom, he adds.
With such vast land masses to cover and plenty of water and ports, it is not surprising that Russia has a large marine fleet, and thus, a real need for maritime satellite voice and data services. Inmarsat and its distributors are beginning to capitalize more on that market. "It's not just the country's ocean-going ships and trawlers that use Inmarsat," says Anders Kallerud, Telenor's vice president of sales. "Russia's inland waterways are also heavily used for shipping goods, and those ships rely on Inmarsat as well."
Keeping these ships connected via satellite is the job of MVS Moscow, part of the FCC-licensed Inmarsat distributor MVS USA, which sells Telenor Inmarsat equipment. MVS USA President Deborah Deffaa says Inmarsat services also are finding other niches in Russia due to Inmarsat's higher-speed Regional Broadband Global Area Network (R-BGAN) offering, which can send and receive data at speeds up to 144 kilobits per second.
"We are seeing a lot of uptake among the oil and gas, government, and mobile user sectors," Deffaa says. "We're also providing R-BGAN connectivity for two Washington Post journalists. Reporter Lisa Dickey and Post Photographer David Hillegas are traveling around Russia filing material for http://www.washingtonpost.com, and we are responsible for getting their material back to America via Inmarsat."
MVS's success in marketing higher-speed satellite services indicates the growing interest in Russia for Internet access. In a country where "only 10 percent of 150 million inhabitants have Internet access, there is real interest in satellite broadband," says Arunas Slekys, Hughes Network Systems (HNS) vice president and general manager for Russia and Newly Independent States. But the state of the Russian economy is limiting the market for broadband satellite services, he adds.
"Those companies who are accessing satellite broadband through our Russian-based Direcway VSAT hubs are typically at locations of 50 or more people," Slekys says. "Such is the cost and the state of the Russian economy that satellite broadband sales to small businesses and consumers has yet to take hold. It's very much a nascent market, and we'll need to bring costs down to hit the right price point for these customers."
Distance education via satellite also has captured the Russian imagination. Siberia's Tomsk State University (TSU) is using HNS' Direcway network and DW6000 terminals to provide distance learning to the Tomsk region, providing remote villages and schools with a level of education previously not possible in the region. "We understand well that online technology is the only means of providing the quality of education comparable to a traditional classroom," TSU prorector Vladimir Demkin said in an article in HNS' Channels magazine (Summer 2005). "Unfortunately, existing terrestrial lines cannot provide the quality of communications needed for online distance learning. That is why we decided to implement the Direcway satellite service."
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