.

Satellite Systems – from VSAT to GMPCS

DISCLAIMER

The idea of using satellites for telecommunications can be dated back to 1945, when the popular
science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke speculated on the possibility of using space technology to
deliver low cost international communications. That idea effectively spawned a brand-new industry,
with scientists in the US and Europe beginning work on designing and launching prototype systems
just a few years later. During the early 1960s large numbers of governments and enterprises trialled
satellite technology. In July 1962 AT&T’s Telstar satellite was the first to complete a transatlantic
telecast, with the first commercial system, known as Intelsat-1 or Early Bird, being successfully
deployed three years later, in April 1965.

Satellites were first put to use to deliver long-distance telecommunications to areas which – for
reasons of geography or economics – lacked the infrastructure to support landline connection. Their
cost-effectiveness over long distances meant they quickly grew to become the preferred means of
delivering long-haul international traffic to countries which did not have access to long-distance
cable systems. In addition, their ‘point-to-multipoint’ capabilities helped them quickly become an
important element of regional and international broadcasting systems, a role which they continue to
fulfil, par excellence, today.

Satellite systems are effectively orbiting radio repeating stations, taking information ‘uplinked’ via
radio waves from a terrestrial Earth station and retransmitting it – or ‘downlinking’ it – through
transponders which beam the information back to receiving stations on the ground. Most
commercial satellites contain a series of transponders, and the ground area covered by the
combined transponder beams is known as the system’s ‘footprint’.

Geostationary / Non-Geostationary

Almost all commercial communications satellites in use today are geostationary systems. This
means they are positioned in a linear cluster some 36,000km above the equator, orbiting in
synchronisation with the planet’s own rotation. Geostationary systems have several important
advantages. First, because they maintain the same spatial relationship to the surface of the Earth,
they can provide continuous service to the area covered by their footprint. In addition, their
considerable distance from the Earth means their footprints can be extremely large, covering close
to one third of the globe, which makes them a very cost effective solution. Finally, their stable
position deep in space ensures a relatively long lifespan – an important consideration with systems
that cost several billion dollars to build and launch.

But while geostationary systems remain by far the most common species, the last few years have
seen the development of new types of system which make use of non-geostationary orbits to
deliver services such as data messaging and person-to-person voice communications.

These systems are collectively known as GMPCS – Global Mobile Personal Communications by
Satellite – but are perhaps more commonly (although sometimes erroneously) called Big and Little
LEO systems, with LEO standing for Low Earth Orbit. Low in this sense is purely relative – at
between 700km and 1,500km from the Earth’s surface these systems certainly occupy a lower orbit
than their geostationary cousins, but are still far higher up than the space station Mir, for example,
which is stationed some 400km from the surface of the Earth.

Non-geostationary systems are generally made up of several satellites, the position of which
changes in relation to the surface of the planet. In operation, they form a moving constellation,
circling the globe and relaying messages back and forth between each other, Earth stations, and
users on the ground.

The Changing Face of the Satellite Industry

Because satellite systems need to occupy a unique portion of space and rely on exclusive use of
particular radio frequencies to perform their uplinks and downlinks, they need to be managed at an
international level. The ITU has fulfilled the function of international registrar of all satellite systems
since they began to be launched back in the mid-1960s. The Union performs the essential co-
ordination functions that ensure satellites are positioned in such a way as to ensure smooth
operation without harmful interference to other systems. Such co-ordination, performed early in a
satellite’s design phase, determines system characteristics which are eventually incorporated into
the manufacture of the satellite itself. Co-ordination is performed by engineers and mathematicians
working in the Space Services Department of the ITU’s Radiocommunication Bureau, and generally
takes around 6 months to complete.

Co-ordination of geostationary systems requires each satellite to be positioned at least 2 degrees

away from any other system. Because they are in constant motion, co-ordination of non-
geostationary systems can be more complex, especially for large constellations such as Iridium (66
satellites), Globalstar (48 satellites) and proposed new broadband systems like Skybridge (80
satellites) and Teledesic (288 satellites). The co-ordination process also determines the frequencies
on which the satellite system may broadcast.

ITU figures show there were a total of 998 geostationary satellites and 178 non-geostationary
satellites registered in operation by September 1997, with those figures forecast to grow to 1,768
geostationary and 245 non-geostationary satellites in operation by September 2003.

While satellites continue to play an important role in long-haul telecommunications, the plethora of
high-capacity undersea fibre optic cables now in place or being laid is fast eating into this market.
But while the satellite industry might be losing on the swings of long-distance telecommunications,
it’s winning on the roundabouts of new applications like VSAT, Satellite Broadcasting and GMPCS.

VSATs

VSAT stands, somewhat arcanely, for Very Small Aperture Terminal – a reference to a particular
type of receiver dish, around 2.5 metres in diameter, which can provide private data networking
capabilities relatively inexpensively for large multinational corporations.

VSAT systems are generally configured in star or mesh formations, and comprise a central master
earth station known as the ‘hub’, and a number of ground-based installations based over a wide
region, which may include several countries around the world. A VSAT hub is normally equipped
with a satellite antenna of between 5-10 metres in diameter, radio broadcast equipment, a network
control system, and a switch which connects the system to the company’s own Wide Area Network.
The switch provides the routing capabilities to route data to and from points across the network,
while the network control system allows technical staff to configure, download and troubleshoot the
network from the hub.

The remote VSAT sites, meanwhile, comprise an exterior radio unit and a digital processing unit,
which controls the transmission and reception of data. The whole system uses geostationary
satellites broadcasting over Ku (11-14 GHz) and C (4-6 GHz) bands to provide fast, private data
networking services.

VSAT systems have been in use in the US since the early 1980s, but have only begun to make
inroads in other markets like Europe and Asia Pacific from the middle of this decade. For
enterprises needing to connect 200 or more remote sites, VSAT networks provide a cost-effective,
reliable way of creating a private data network. Common VSAT applications include file transfer,
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), credit card authentication, news distribution, telemetry (machine-
to-machine information exchange), video-based training and even voice communications.

VSAT technology is proving highly popular with retail chains, travel agencies, banks, news and
media organizations, utilities and the financial services industry.

VSAT technology can also be used to great effect in development projects, such as the primary
school teacher training programme currently being undertaken by the ITU in Morocco, in
conjunction with the Government of Morocco, the World Bank and UNESCO. The project has been
established as part of UNESCO’s Education for All programme and uses new information
technology to combine the potential use of television, telecommunications, and computers. In such
applications VSAT technology has the advantage of not only being relatively inexpensive but also
offering outward broadcast quality for video, data and audio as well as allowing for a return channel
for audio and text. It has been found in distance learning studies that student feedback is essential,
so simple broadcasting technology is not sufficient, as it does not allow at present for a return
channel.

Satellite Broadcasting

Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) television was developed in the US to help overcome ‘blind spots’
in the coverage area of traditional terrestrial systems. Today’s systems transmit digital video signals
from high-powered geostationary satellites directly to subscribers' premises via small rooftop-
mounted receiving dishes, without the need for additional ground receiving or distribution
equipment except in the satellite uplink. The enormous popularity of Pay-TV broadcast services has
prompted rapid growth in this segment of the satellite industry, with further expansion expected
through the imminent advent of interactive TV.

Satellites are also increasingly being used to deliver commercial radio services. Aside from
providing paid access to a wide range of remote broadcast services, new projects which take
advantage of the large-scale distribution potential of satellite-based radio broadcasting are now
being developed. One example is the Worldspace project, announced at Telecom 95, which
involves the launch of three satellites to provide radio services to around 5 billion people living in
Africa, the Middle East and Arab States, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. The
service, which will include news and information, educational programmes and entertainment, is
due to come online first in Africa later this year through the AfriStar satellite, which was launched in
October 1998. The AsiaStar and AmeriStar satellites are scheduled for launch within the next two
years.

GMPCS Systems

The newest arrival on the satellite scene is GMPCS, which is also known as MSS (Mobile Satellite
Service) or Big and Little LEO satellites. These new, non-geostationary systems are designed to
provide a range of services, from store-and-forward data messaging and telemetry to high-grade
voice, to broadband multimedia.

The advantage of LEO systems, and their cousins, the MEOs (Medium Earth Orbit) lies in their
proximity to the Earth’s surface (700km-1,500km for LEOs, around 10,000km for MEOs). To move
data across very large regions, or around the world, traditional geostationary systems are obliged to
up- and downlink information to earth stations or use inter-satellite links to communicate directly
with other systems

The delay caused by this complex routing of signals means geostationary systems have to employ
a range of sophisticated techniques like echo cancellation to offset the effects of the time delay on
voice calls. At the same time, the need to use powerful transmitters and receivers to cope with the
distance from the satellite to the user prevents geostationary systems from providing personal
communications services via the kinds of small, portable handsets common with terrestrial cellular
systems. Furthermore, geostationary systems are prone to reliability problems at high latitudes,
because their orbital path around the equator results in a highly-angled beam which is easily
disrupted by prominent topographical features and even tall buildings.

It was while working on ways to avoid such problems that engineers came up with the concept of
low Earth-orbiting systems which could operate at low power, and deliver reliable service to almost
any point on the surface of the planet. Enter the LEOs and MEOs, small satellites which orbit the
planet rapidly in synchronised constellations, handing over ‘calls’ from satellite to satellite in much
the same way as cellular telephony systems support user mobility by transferring calls between
discrete ‘cells’.

LEO and MEO systems work using small receivers and handheld units around the same size as the
old analogue cellphones common in the mid-80s.

The first of the new MSS systems to come online was Orbcomm’s, in 1997. Orbcomm’s system,
which consists of 35 satellites in a Little LEO system, enables businesses to track remote and
mobile assets such as trucks, railway stock and heavy equipment; monitor remote utility meters and
oil and gas storage tanks, wells and pipelines; and stay in touch with remote workers anywhere on
the planet.

Generally speaking Little LEOs are appropriate for remote data communications, digital tracking (for
transportation management), environmental monitoring, and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Date
Acquisition), which provides remote monitoring of isolated facilities.

Most Little LEOs are either so-called 'bent pipe' systems, or store-and-forward systems. The bent
pipe system relays messages directly between users, while the store-and-forward approach means
that a satellite receives information from a ground station, stores it in on-board memory, continues
on its orbit, and releases the information to the next appropriate ground station, or user. Users
access the new Little LEO systems using small hand-held messaging units incorporating a low-
power omni-directional antenna and weighing in at under 500 grammes. Big LEO systems and
MEO systems use larger satellites than their Little LEO counterparts, and target a very different
market – real-time voice and broadband services. Most of the planned and existing systems are
already well-known names – Iridium, the Motorola-backed system which was the first to market with
the launch of commercial service last October; Globalstar, a 48-satellite constellation due to come
online on October 10, to coincide with Telecom 99 + Interactive 99, Ellipso, a system backed by
Boeing and others due for launch in 2002; Skybridge, a broadband data-oriented service being
developed by Alcatel, Loral, Mitsubishi and other partners; ICO, a spin-off of Inmarsat, a long-time
provider of satellite services, which is developing the only standard MEO system, with 10 satellites
and 12 Earth stations; and Teledesic, an ambitious 288-satellite constellation which is the brainchild
of Bill Gates and Craig McCaw.

While Big LEOs and MEOs have the power and coverage to offer voice services virtually anywhere
around the globe and data rates up to 2Mbps, the early promise of these systems is currently in
danger of faltering badly, due to technical developments in other realms and crippling development
and launch costs. The development of the IMT-2000 standard for third generation cellular systems,
for example, will help facilitate the global roaming that was once the sole province of satellite
systems, while already promising data rates at least as good as the Big LEOs. At the same time,
with system build-and-launch costs mounting to many billions of dollars, pricing of services has
been set much higher than cellular users now pay – a factor which is believed to have seriously
damaged the viability of first-comer Iridium.

With investor confidence alarmingly low in an industry reliant on raising huge amounts of capital,
Iridium and ICO have both recently run into financial difficulties, and are now working on radically
restructuring tariffs and/or system development costs. Globalstar, meanwhile, continues to pin its
hopes on a unique selling point which remains valid in spite of advances such as IMT-2000 – the
system’s ability to provide service in remote regions.

Unlike some of its competitors, who have largely chosen to target the business market, Globalstar
and Ellipso are both focusing on cementing agreements with nations throughout the developing
world, with a view to using its constellations to provide mobile and even fixed-line services in
countries with little or no traditional telecoms infrastructure.

With demand high and waiting lists longer than ever, this kind of business plan could prove the
winning solution, provided operators are able to offer service at a price low enough to reach a mass
market. In a sense, too, the strategy recalls the reason for the deployment of the first satellite
systems, back in the 1960s – the provision of services to countries and cities unable to access a
landline connection.

If successful, the use of MSS in nations which currently lack adequate fixed and mobile coverage
could represent one of the most important steps forward in developing infrastructures to support
Universal Access to telecommunications services for people all over the world.

For further information, please contact the Telecom 99 + Interactive 99 Secretariat at

+41 22 730 6161 (phone) or +41 22 730 6444 (fax), or see the Telecom web site at
www.itu.int/Telecom.

For media representatives, please contact the Telecom 99 Press Service at +41 22
730 6463/6402 (phone) or +41 22 730 6577/6578 (fax)
The views expressed in these backgrounders are those of their authors and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the International Telecommunication Union or its Members.

These backgrounders are posted free of copyright and may be used in part or in full by anyone who
so desires.