By James Careless
Today more than ever, secure communications matter; whether for maintaining homeland security, protecting privacy or just keeping competitors' prying eyes at bay. This is why businesses and governments alike constantly seek the most secure transmission paths for their communications and why they continue to choose satellite-enabled networks as their medium of choice.
"When it comes to which communications medium is the most secure, the proof is in the pudding," says David Hartshorn, secretary general of the Global VSAT Forum (GVF). "Take the U.S. military, who has mission-critical communications requirements where no compromise of security is allowable: They choose satellites."
It is important to note that content traveling over a terrestrial network often is embedded with encryption layers. With the increasing growth of hybrid networks in play today, however, one of the main reasons satellite is being incorporated into a network platform is for secure backup when terrestrial links fail. Likewise, content is becoming more complex, requiring more bandwidth and the need to reach more end user sites. With these increased requirements, securing that content from origination to destination is more paramount and in most cases more economical for the customer when satellite is added rather than expanding terrestrially.
"Requirements continue to expand rapidly in terms of bandwidth, supporting services and global coverage. In fact, the Defense Department estimated 80 percent of the satellite communications capacity needed for Operation Iraqi Freedom was provided by commercial satellites," says David Helfgott, president and CEO of Americom Government Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES Global.
In addition to military operations, government agencies and commerce operations also rely on satellite-enabled platforms to transmit content. "The United Nations uses satellite communications to link its global network of atmospheric monitoring stations in order to ensure compliance with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty," adds Hartshorn. "And in Asia, most major stock exchanges rely on satellite systems to move transactional data in and out of their exchanges quickly, reliably and securely."
The Advantages Of Satellite For Secure Communications
At first glance, one might question the sense of comparing satellite versus terrestrial (wired landline) transmissions for secure communications: Isn't it the actual encryption of the signal that makes it secure, rather than how it is transmitted?
It could also be argued that satellite carriage is actually less secure than terrestrial. After all, can't anyone eavesdrop on a satellite signal simply by pointing a dish in the right direction? In contrast, to intercept a terrestrial transmission you have to find the wire and tap it physically; an act that takes more time and runs a higher risk of detection.
Logically, these points make sense; so why do the U.S. military, the United Nations and Asian stock exchanges rely on satellite for their highest-priority transmissions?
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