In October 2012, Superstorm Sandy caused widespread communication outages along the Atlantic Coast. Amidst the devastation, Verizon was able to quickly deploy satellite-equipped crisis response vehicles, establishing 27 temporary connectivity sites throughout New York and New Jersey.
Stuart Burson, Associate Director of Satellite Solutions Group at Verizon, says the satellite network often acts as a first responder in times of natural disaster. “VSAT is seamlessly integrated into our service portfolio. It’s a simple form of alternate access to a site. We mapped satellite to the feature set of our MPLS network, and work with partners like iDirect to ensure satellite provides our customers with what they want — seamless data transport.”
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Breaking Out of the Silo
“Satellite is an alternate access technology, but is not separated into an access technology silo,” Burson says. “If you look at the vast array of services Verizon provides to the enterprise market, it’s very important our satellite engineering team tries to mirror those features as closely as possible so that they are integrated into our final solution.”
Eric Watko, VP of Integrated Solutions at iDirect, says: “The goal is to make satellite look like any other access technology. To support the service needs of the industry, we can’t just focus on what we are doing over the space segment.”
For BT Global Services, satellite plays the vital role of upholding a promise of providing a managed network service whenever and wherever needed. BT Connect’s global MPLS network provides connectivity to nearly 200 countries; for roughly 37,000 remote sites worldwide where fiber cannot reach, satellite carries the load.
New Technology Advances
“Technology is moving to a virtualized environment,” Watko says. “Satellite should leverage that technology. We’re reimagining our technology portfolio around common virtualization standards and software-defined networking principles.”
iDirect introduced Layer 2 over Satellite (L2oS) within its Evolution platform, allowing the satellite connection to emulate a transparent Ethernet link. BT Global Services is among the early adopters, launching end-to-end Ethernet connectivity in Turkey, the Middle East, western Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
The days of satellite being a high-cost, high-complexity solution matched only to a specific set of requirements is disappearing. VS
