Ka-band satellite systems - On-board processing
From INVESaTWIKI
On-board processing satellites
On-board processing systems has a number of benefits over bent-pipe technology
and it will be deployed on three of the four forthcoming Ka-band systems as indicated in Table 1.
On-board processing payloads act as intelligent signal routers and switches, directing traffic from one spot beam to another within the same satellite or to another sibling satellite to provide large regional or global single-hop connectivity. On-board processing enables very efficient fullmesh broadband connections that can adapt quickly to changing data throughput and system loading demands-all key attributes for enterprise networking and the increasing importance of supporting peer-to-peer networking applications. The new Ka-band systems under development will be deployed in two varieties-regional and global. Four major global offerings are planned as shown in Table 2, with most scheduled to launch services in the 2003-2004 time period. Common to each of these systems are high-bandwidth transmit/receive capability and hefty system implementation price tags ($4B to $9B). The regional broadband offerings, summarized in Table 2, will provide the first indications of business plan success for the satellite broadband markets as several have launched this year (e.g., StarBand and Astra-Net) and the remaining will be in service in 2002. These systems are much less complicated than their global counterparts and have greatly reduced system price tags ($500 to $900M). The regional systems appear much more likely to succeed because of less technical complexity, but more importantly they appear to have far fewer business risks-significantly lower infrastructure costs, less regulatory concerns, and fewer distribution and service channel issues. [1]
References
[1] M.Dankberg, J.Puetz
"Comparative approaches in the economics of broadband satellite services".
