Growth of Mobile Backhaul Test Equipment Market
Mobile backhaul test equipment
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Satellite Demand is Growing – Mike Kenneally, NewSat VP of Satellite Strategy
Mike Kenneally VP of Satellite Communications Strategy
Mr Kenneally, the vice president of Satellite Strategy of NewSat, expects the size of the company’s teleport engineers to increase in the coming years due to the rising demand for mobile backhaul, satellite communications and satellite-based services.
A communications specialist and information management expert, Kennealy has been with the satellite carrier for six years. He also worked at the Department of Defence, the Prime Minister’s Department and IBM. Under his supervision as technical auditor, the national census adopted spatial information systems in 1996 for the very first time.
In an interview with Sa Defense Business journal, Kenneally talked about the teleport operations and future satellite communications fleet of the independent SATCOM carrier.
NewSat is poised to become a global player in satellite communications business with the launching of its first Ka band satellite. The company runs two teleports in Australia which serve both local and internal clients. It acquired the Perth and Adelaide teleports from SES Newskies Satellites in 2005. The Adelaide facility boasts of twelve antennas. These facilities are run by radio frequency engineers who mitigate latency problems and ensure timely transmission of signals to and from geostationary satellites.
NewSat’s satellite reselling and teleport business passed the Australian government standards for public contracts, making the company an officially “Endorsed Supplier”. NewSat has been a satcom supplier to US and Australian defense agencies. It was also nominated for the 2012 World Teleport Association’s Awards for Excellence, along with two independent teleport companies.
South Australia is a strategic location for running teleports due to its good reception pathway for satellite signals. Kennealy points out that it is critical consideration when choosing contractors for military communications since combatants often have to rely to satellite antennas to communicate in areas not reached by cable lines or cellular sites. He said NewSat teleports have a global reach, thus they can communicate with antennas outside Australia and connect end-users with another satellite terminal wherever it may be to facilitate two-way real-time communications.
Lockheed Martin has begun building the company’s first Ka band satellite, Jabiru-1, and the project is likely to get finished in 2014. Arianespace will then launch the satellite, which will be located in a geostationary orbit to serve Australasia, the Middle East and Africa.
Kenneally expects more engineers at the Adelaide facility in the near future.
“..We have secured nearly $600 million of pre launch satellite contracts,” he said. NewSat is the satellite communications partner of the US army under 20 different contracts which mainly involve service coverage in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Jabiru satellite communications program will enable NewSat to increase its satellite communications, teleport and mobile backhaul coverage from 75% to almost 100% of the world’s surface.
Míla to Deploy Overture 1400 and 4800 Mobile Backhaul Solutions
Overture_4324 Mobile Backhaul solution
Overture announced its mobile backhaul deal with Míla ehf. Iceland’s incumbent operator will be using Overture 1400 and 4800 solutions. Mila operates the country’s trunk and access networks. Faced with rising bandwidth demand, Mila will integrate the flexible Carrier Ethernet platforms into its existing backhaul network.
Mila is committed to operate as a progressive carrier in the global arena, said Halldór Guðmundsson, director of network. To meet the stringent requirements of the national carrier, the company chose the long-proven Ethernet over Copper products of Overture to develop layer 2 optical networks.
Telecommunications providers are seeing a rapid rise in bandwidth demand, prompting them to expand capacity while balancing revenues and expenses. Thus, mobile backhaul solutions that support 3G and 4G data services like 10GigE platforms are increasingly becoming an integral part of modern backhaul network. Vijay Raman, vice president of product management and marketing at Overture , expects continuous growth in in bandwidth pressure as laptops, mobile phones and consoles become more prevalent.
With headquarters in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Overture is among the world’s leading provider of Carrier Ethernet backhaul and aggregation solutions, serving 450 providers and network operators around the world. Overture technology enables service providers to leverage Carrier Ethernet to improve profitability and operate in high-capacity Ethernet platform via fiber, copper or TDM. The technology is ideal for cloud computing and mobile communications that rely on smart networks.
In other news, 2DAY Telecom sealed a long-term capacity agreement with SES, enabling it to expand its GSM backhaul services across Kazakhstan to meet rising demand.
[ Mobile Backhaul and Satellite Broadband Strategies in 2012 CommunicAsia Summit ]
2DAY Telecom had a 50% increase in capacity utilisation on SES’ NSS-12 satellite , achieving 54 MHz. At such capacity, the GSM operator will be in a better position to deliver mobile communication services across mountainous terrain in Kazakhstan. NSS-12 also supports telecommunications networks.
2DAY Telecom’s parent company, VimpelCom, is a global leader in voice and data services , offering wireless, fixed and broadband technologies in Ukraine, Russia, ,Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Armenia and Cambodia. VimpelCom and its operating companies manage the “Beeline” and “Kyivstar” brands. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the company trades at the New York Stock Exchange.
Satellite Dishes and Solar Panels on Historic Buildings
Satellite Dish On Historic Buildings
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Illegal satellite dishes
Economic liberalizations and improvement in income levels in developing countries in Asia are making the region a key part of the growth strategy of global satellite communications vendors. China and India are poised grow into a huge satcom market despite current political and market obstacles. China has more than a billion of inhabitants, and the local economy is the third largest in the world, growing at the fastest rate for the past 30 years. The gray market for cable television is growing in many Chinese cities, which is a good sign of growing middle class population who seek international shows. The black market for cable TV and satellite dishes allows cheap access to BBC, CNN , MTV and the likes.
Analysts estimate the number of illegal satellite dishes in China at around 50-60 million. The black market owed its growth to a regulation that only allows expatriates and hotel operators in the country to use satellite dishes. This regulation has been in place since the early 90s. As of 2008, more than 10 million dishes capable of receiving signals overseas in DVB-S (Digital Video Broadcasting-Satellite) standards got into China. And more than 40 million gray-market dishes were believed to be shipped in metropolitan areas for installation last year.
China DBSAT, known as the second largest operator in Asia, is tasked to act as the gatekeeper to the Chinese market. Founded in 2006, the company operates Zhongxing-9, a joint venture of China Satellite Communications Corp. and Sino Satellite Communications Co., Ltd. With five in-orbit satellites , it provides satellite bandwidth and integrated satellite communications services for government agencies, broadcasting networks, telecommunications providers, and other commercial enterprises. Except AsiaSat and APT Satellite Holdings, non-Chinese satellite communications providers are forbidden from delivering wireless service directly to Chinese end-users.
US has heavily criticized China for its protectionist policy. China has issued tougher measures to regulate the use of satellite dishes, but the black market for satellite dishes is unlikely to dwindle soon. China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has no mandate to enforce compliance across local governments.
According to SARFT, more than 400 million household population are in underserved regions, and an estimated 200 million households with TV but no cable service are getting signals via analog terrestrial transmission or illegal satellite dish or set-top box. Terry Lu, chairman of DVN Group, estimated the country’s digital TV user-base at 250 million. Yet this huge market is not yet fully tapped due to regulatory restrictions.
