IP and Satellite: Communication Worlds Merging

 

Every revolution has a defining moment, and in the modern world of telecommunications there may be none more important than the development of Internet Protocol (IP). Even with its early shortcomings, IP solved ongoing conundrums of interconnectivity, driving everyone in the same direction, and international standards committees have included new capabilities in their specifications that allowed both terrestrial and satellite service providers to play to their strength.
“The advent of IP brought everything together,” says David Bettinger, CTO for iDirect. “It makes it possible to run different applications — voice, video and data — all on the same network, and this carries important advantages for service providers because there is only one network to manage and provide training for. From the consumer’s point of view, there is only one vendor and one bill to pay, so the benefits are really across the board. Terrestrial carriers led the way, taking advantage of the benefits of Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), in which a label is attached to every IP packet. This makes the delivery process faster because the router doesn’t need to look up the packet’s destination. Label switching makes it possible for legacy applications to run on IP networks. Today, satellite carriers are following suit and providing support for the same applications.”
The addition of IP to the hybrid world means that even more, a satellite-only network is a thing of the past, says Bettinger, “In reality, every satellite network is now a hybrid. A satellite terminal is either used as an edge connection or as the middle-mile approach with terrestrial circuits on either end. Satellite networks almost always terminate back into a terrestrial network. For example, teleport operators provide private backhaul circuits to a company’s headquarters where the traffic is deposited into the company’s core MPLS network and routed accordingly.”
The road to hybridization has been a long one with changes taking the better part of two decades to fully germinate, but corporations, governments and militaries are reaping the rewards of hybridization today. When Hughes began offering shared hub services, the satellite operator had to provide terrestrial bandwidth, says Mike Cook, senior vice president at Hughes Network Systems. “We took a step back three to four years ago and took a hard look at our business. We are really a managed service provider, not just a transport provider. When you break that mindset we realized that we can provide additional services to our clients.
For BP Corp.’s retail point-of-sale network, which involves two hubs, two satellites and multiple backhauls to and from different data centers as well as suppliers and end users, Hughes installed and manages both DSL and satellite broadband technologies at more than 10,000 retail locations. The fully integrated, managed broadband network includes the migration of the network to IP, supporting new point-of-sale systems, and providing a platform for the delivery of potential future bandwidth-intensive applications. “This is very powerful from our customer’s point of view,” says Cook. “Unless they use a managed service provider, the customer would have to sign and manage multiple carrier contracts. They can now deal with a single managed service provider. We have automated provisioning and trouble ticketing systems and provide comprehensive managed services. Our approach allows us to optimize a client’s network several different ways,” he says.
“IP is here and it has transformed the way things are done,” says Bettinger. “We now have the benefit of advanced [quality of service] across the satellite link. In addition, MPLS and advanced routing protocols have had a big impact. The retail industry is a good example of what is happening with hybrid networks. Retailers started with terrestrial but then transitioned to VSAT to get more bandwidth. They are discovering that satellite technology has some powerful benefits in an IP-based world and are finding new ways to utilize satellite systems.

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