Advances in telco, IT and new space bring greater opportunity, but also new complexities that need to be solved for that opportunity to be realized. And much of this falls on the shoulders of the ground segment industry.
Our Position
We are a global leader
in IP-based satellite
communications.
Perfecting ground
infrastructure, accelerating
business growth, and
developing innovative
solutions for the world’s top
satellite operators, service
providers, telcos and
equipment makers.
Owned by ST Engineering
Headquarters in Europe, USA and Singapore
35+ years of innovation
1,000 employees globally
57% VSAT hub market share
Product portfolio branded under iDirect and Newtec
Leader in Enterprise, Mobility, Broadcast
and Government/Military Markets
iDirect Government, wholly owned subsidiary, leader in US DoD
Probably the largest transformation in
satellite history
• From GEO to VHTS GEO/MEO/LEO/HEO
• From 20 GBPS capacity to terabit
level constellations
• From static beams to dynamic beams
• From bespoke payloads to
standardized/programmable payloads?
Major transformation in telco history
• To a master 5G platform
• Convergence of all access technologies
• Automation, virtualization, orchestration
• Scale, capacity and performance
Ground infrastructure must play a unifying role
• From software-defined satellites to
software-defined networks
• From stand-alone networks to
integrated ecosystems
• From appliances to virtual infrastructure
• From configuration to orchestrated
service delivery
Innovation Enablers
Standardization
Convergence of all access technologies
based on open standards to enable
global communication systems
Orchestration
Based on open standards for
orchestrating connectivity services
across multiple networks
Virtualization and Cloud
Based on standards and opensource
bringing forward improved scale,
performance and security
Next-Gen Satellite Networks
5G TECHNOLOGY
INTEGRATION
MULTI ORBIT
OPERATION
PERFORMANCE
AND USER
EXPERIENCE
SERVICE
OCHESTRATION
AND RESOURCE
ALLOCATION
IoT, M2M, AI, BIG
DATA
IoT
ADVANCED
MOBILITY
PLATFORM AS A
SERVICE
GLOBAL SECURE &
HYBRID NETWORKS
Network Operation Center
Data Center
Teleport
Gateway
The
Connectivity
Mix of
the Future
Digital Divide | Cloud Access | IoT
Scalable throughput and CIR to meet any
demand and best user experience
Broadband &
Fixed Market
Use Cases
Lowest TCO - Optimal bandwidth and
operational efficiency, proven reliability
End to End service orchestration
and assurance of carrier services
Seamless integration in Telco 5G
infrastructure, expansion to edge computing
IoT
Mobility
Market
Use Cases
Highest throughput serving most demanding
customers with a single modem
Best User Experience with highest CIR at
the right place and time
Security and Reliability critical to address
digital transformation
Service orchestration and service
assurance across capacities
Advanced mobility features for seamless
connectivity switching
Continuous advances in waveform efficiency
Cloud-based architectures benefiting from virtualization
Orchestrate services so they are seamless, responsive,
cost-effective and scalable to any site and application
Ground
Infrastructure
Must Unify
Ecosystems
Full interoperability with Telco via
5G architecture
Serve all satcom mobility and fixed markets
with seamless user experience
Provide application specific solutions
WE MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR OUR
CUSTOMERS TO BUILD MULTI-ORBIT,
MULTI-ACCESS TECHNOLOGY
STRATEGIES ON THE WORLD’S FIRST
CLOUD-BASED PLATFORM
Let me first quickly introduce ST Engineering iDirect for those who are not yet familiar with us.
We are global leader IP based satellite communication solutions and are well know for our
innovative VSAT platforms and modems used by top satellite operators, service providers, telco/MNO, governments and integrators.
Ground Segment Must Play a Unifying Role
Advances in telco, IT and new space bring greater opportunity, but also new complexities that need to be solved for that opportunity to be realized. And much of this falls on the shoulders of the ground segment industry.
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Today we see three ecosystems converging. We have the global telco and I.T. industry, which is evolving quite rapidly, with 5G as a driving force. Then we have the new space eco-system and in the middle of it all is the ground segment. As ground segment we have a key unifying role to play, bringing the different disruptive technologies from all 3 eco-systems together.
And we'll do that by using a lot of the innovations that are happening also in the broader telco industry, like virtualization, orchestration and standardization. We will be building new ground segment capabilities that can actually close the gap between innovations in the terrestrial connected IT world and new space.
Today, the satellite communications industry is in lock step with the broader telecom sector, driving the largest transformation in its history. Multiple innovations are aligning under the banner of “new space” to shatter traditional barriers of performance, cost, scale, and interoperability.
We are seeing the launch of thousands of satellites across different types of orbits (GEO/MEO/LEO/HEO), flooding the skies with high volumes of ultra-fast capacity, leaping from gigabit to terabit level capacity on the constellation level. The industry is driving downward cost curves and latency levels, opening satellite communications to a new range of applications.
Satellite architectures, which were previously designed upfront to fulfill a specific purpose with fixed beams covering certain regions with pre-determined throughput, are now becoming increasingly flexible with completely dynamic beams and software-defined payloads. These new adaptable payloads can be launched and configured later to a specific use case or reconfigured depending on demand. This removes considerable business risks which have plagued satellite operators and enables these operators to put the capacity where it’s needed the most.
New Space Innovations
Largest transformation in our industry’s history
The satellite industry is in the midst of the largest transformation since the inception of satellite communications over five decades ago.
Launch of thousands of satellites across all orbits
GEO/MEO/LEO/HEO, VHTS, UHTS
Leap from Gigabyte to Terabyte performance
Unlocking higher performance form VHTS constellations, enabling lower latency from MEO/LEO.
Shift from Static to Dynamic Payloads
Software-defined payloads, multi-orbit and multi-band satellite architectures, advancements in electronically steered antenna technology, electric propulsion and other developments such as cloud-based analytics are making space an exciting, but increasingly complex and dynamic marketplace.
Unprecedented Relevance and Opportunity
Lower entry barriers and the cost per byte from orbit
Accelerating industry investment
Global Telco and IT Ecosystem Innovations
Global telco is undergoing a parallel transformation involving four major shifts
To a master 5G platform
The massive push to connect everyone and everything is forcing convergence of all access technologies into a single, unified network framework, delivering exponentially higher levels of bandwidth and connectivity to individuals and businesses around the world
The shift in focus, convergence and adoption of common standards sets the stage for 5G to become the master wireless platform.
To a virtualization
Achieving massive scale can only be delivered via automation, virtualization and orchestration.
The global telco industry is shifting from purpose-built, proprietary hardware components to a software-defined, flexible and extensible virtual architecture.
To on-demand services
Also moving away from a paradigm where everything is configured upfront, to a more orchestrated means of service delivery where services and infrastructure are created at the moment they are needed and that can adapt and change according to demand, without the need for reconfiguration.
To delivery of new value
The landscape is shifting from a service-provider-centric view of value creation towards a more open and cooperative environment to address a wide range of uses and needs, encouraging network-centered innovation.
Major ecosystem players can interact collaboratively and become a springboard for the development and delivery of future integrated applications.
The satellites are becoming more and more flexible. So you could say they are becoming software defined. The ground segment will also enable that in the sense that those software defined satellites will turn into software defined networks where everything is flexible and capacity can be put where you need it. And the ground segment enables that by aligning the capabilities on the ground with the capabilities of the satellite.
Satellite is also moving away from being a standalone network with its own special waveforms, special API, special network management system, etc. The satellite network can no longer behave like an island on itself, it needs to become part of a more integrated global communications ecosystem.
We will also explain how we're moving away from selling appliances, protocol servers, linecards, modulators and demodulators to selling really virtual and generic infrastructure.
This generic infrastructure can then be modified depending on the use case of the customer at the moment it is needed, that is virtualization enabled. We're moving from configuration to orchestration, meaning that we need to dramatically reduce the time it takes to configure certain things on the VSAT platform. Setting up a new beam, setting up a new service … all that manual configuration needs to go away.
The means to successful integration of satellite into the converged 5G network lies with the ground segment which will need to fully adopt the automation and orchestration that is being standardized by the terrestrial industry.
Adoption of this technology will allow the ground segment to deliver the required connectivity to the end user in a frictionless manner irrespective of the application, region or location
Here we will leverage opensource APIs such as PRESTO API that are defined by the MEF LSO (lifecycle service orchestration) framework. Utilizing these standardized APIs enables SPs to set up a service over a satellite system in a similar way they would set up a service over MPLS or over a fiber network since it’s based on the same API and it’s being set up in a fully automated way. A strategic alignment of the new digital ground network with developments in space and telecom/IT can substantially improve TCO and “future-proof” the network.
Adopting the necessary building blocks can drive operational efficiency, improve innovation cycles, increase speed of network deployment, maximize flexibility, and solve the current scalability constraints. All these issues are difficult to achieve with the traditional ground network architecture.
Conducting a comprehensive virtualization process on the
ground - whether on-prem, off-prem cloud or hybrid environments - can simultaneously leveragethe “supply-side” economies of scale of space-based developments and unleash “demand-side” economies of scale characterizing use of broader cloud-based systems.
Technology Partner in the Global Telecom and IT Ecosystem
As an industry leader, STEi believes in the unique value skillset of the ground segment, and we embrace our responsibility to fulfilling the promise of space-segment innovations.
Deliver seamless user experience, no compromises
Serve all satcom markets including mix of air-sea-land
Blend satellite delivery platform as integral part of 5G overall solution
Unlock flexibility (time/speed/place) - global resource management
Assure agile and orchestrated service delivery/lifecycle management
Bandwidth efficiency and operational scalability are paramount