From Vision to Reality: The Ground Segment Innovation Journey

60 minute webinar
Thursday, February 16, 2023 at 4:00 p.m.

We’ll walk you from the New Ground vision, through R&D, to early proof of concept, highlighting multiple industry perspectives as we go.

We will cover:

Space-Earth Integration:
– The future of dynamic allocation of satellite resources in multiple orbits.
– The future of automated orchestration of resources and services.

Cloud and digitization:
– The future of network infrastructure scaling through cloud-based architectures.

Creating Hybrid Service Offerings in the 5G Era:
– The future of Satcom as a complementary technology to terrestrial 5G, offering ubiquity, continuity/reliability and scalability of services.

For more information and registration click here

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Aicox together with its partner Ovzon receives first SATCOM-as-a-Service order

The order is for Ovzon’s SATCOM-as-a-Service Plus solution, a fully integrated solution that includes satellite bandwidth, Ovzon T6 mobile satellite terminals, commercial internet, gateway access, terrestrial backbone connectivity, and 24/7 customer service and support. The order is for an initial test and validation phase for a demanding customer in the Civil Protection sector.

Aicox Soluciones, with whom Ovzon has cooperated since 2021, offers customized advanced technical and satellite communication solutions to customers within defense, civil protection, and emergency services in the Spanish and Portuguese markets.

“Ovzon’s SATCOM-as-a-Service solutions perfectly complement Aicox Soluciones. Our Spanish government customer needed a solution enabling them to quickly deploy multiple high-bandwidth applications with guaranteed connectivity, resilience, and mobility. This is a key factor for the success of mission-critical operations in life-critical environments,” says Jose Carlos Laborda, CEO of Aicox Soluciones.

“We are very pleased to have received our first contract in Spain. We have worked closely with our European partners to demonstrate that Ovzon’s SATCOM-as-a-Service solutions are uniquely suited also for public safety and first responder organizations. Our solutions perfectly answer their needs for high-performing, mobile, and resilient satellite communications that are essential to the success of their critical missions. This order is a great win and another step in verifying that our focus on answering the rapidly expanding demand for our solutions throughout Europe is paying off,” says Per Norén, CEO of Ovzon.

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Aicox Soluciones, HISPASAT and Ovzon will participate in the SEDEXPO International Fair

Aicox Soluciones, HISPASAT and Ovzon will participate in the SEDEXPO International Fair on November 17-19.

These companies will present their “SATCOM as-a-Service” solutions with a toolkit specifically designed for defense, fire and rescue services.

In addition, “SATCOM as-a-Service” combines Ovzon’s high performance and mobile satellite mobile terminals, both On-The-Pause and On-The-Move, the reliability of HISPASAT satellite connectivity and the Aicox local support.

Aicox Soluciones, HISPASAT and Ovzon will present at their stand at the SEDEXPO International Fair, which takes place in Silleda between November 17 and 19, the “SATCOM as-a-Service” solutions aimed at the field of defense and emergencies. These solutions can be offered through three different Ovzon terminals:

  • Ovzon T6 , a lightweight and rugged portable broadband terminal, the size of a laptop, that can be deployed, aligned and connected in less than a minute and provides connectivity via a satellite link.
  • Ovzon Medium W/H satellite broadband terminals for on-the-go applications. Combined with satellite services, they offer full mobility, ease of use and access for customers.
  • Ovzon Mini , a small broadband satellite terminal for mobile applications.

OVZON T6 Ovzon Medium W/H

Both Ovzon T6 and Ovzon Mini can deploy On-The-Pause applications and be transported in small cases, while Ovzon Medium W/H can be installed on mobile platforms such as UAVs, helicopters, maritime vessels or land vehicles to offer On-The-Move solutions. . All of them are capable of transmitting up to 70 Mbps and receiving up to 120 Mbps.

In addition, these solutions are marketed under different business models:

– OVZON PLUS , a solution that offers flexible data rates, as well as a data package per GB.
– OVZON GO is a dedicated solution, used specifically for a fixed usage model.
– OVZON HERO is an advanced and customized high-performance solution that allows the most demanding customers to perform tasks in critical environments.

Likewise, and as a complement to this type of portable or mobile connectivity solutions, HISPASAT will present, in collaboration with the company PYRO, its fire prevention and fighting system based on Bseed WATCH® technology. This solution combines the use of sensors with satellite connectivity in 100% of the territory to offer a forest fire monitoring tool; which allows you to calculate, up to 10 days in advance, the risk of fire, the rates of fire spread or the humidity of forest fuels. Bseed WATCH® also has early detection systems without false alarms, thanks to its temperature, CO and CO2 sensors, which send an alert to the population and those responsible for local emergencies in a matter of seconds. In the event of a fire, Bseed WATCH® provides a unique view of the emergency, offering high-quality information on the area, such as its weather conditions, the location and progress of the fire in real time, and the control of evacuation routes. All this information obtained by the system is offered openly to the population and those responsible for extinction, so that they can take and plan more effective and safer actions to extinguish the fire.

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Ovzon’s 2.9 MUSD order from UK’s Global RadioData Communications Ltd. (GRC) for SATCOM-as-a-Service

The demand for high-performing, mobile and resilient satellite communications is increasing rapidly throughout the world. Ovzon’s SATCOM-as-a-Service solution is uniquely suited for organizations where communications are paramount to the success of critical missions in the most remote locations or when terrestrial infrastructure is unavailable.

 

GRC Ltd provides a fully managed (24/7) end-to-end Satcom Service (6-SAT), with their products and services being used by government and defense agencies, emergency responders, NGO’s and the oil, gas and mineral exploration industry throughout the world.

“We are very excited about this new opportunity and to work with our partners at GRC. We take great pride in our unique ability to meet customer requirements for no-fail communications systems, and it is clear to us that GRC has a very similar view which will make this collaboration very successful. Ovzon SATCOM-as-a-Service is specifically designed for performance, mobility and resiliency. Our solution and network is uniquely suited to enable the success of critical missions in demanding environments. We look forward to working with GRC to meet this growing demand in the European market. Our mission is to connect the world’s critical missions via satellite,” says Per Norén, CEO of Ovzon.

“We are happy to add Ovzon’s unique SATCOM-as-a-Service solution to GRC’s 6-SAT offerings. We are seeing more and more focus on small, mobile, easy-to-use terminals that operate on high-performance networks and Ovzon clearly plays a leading role in meeting this demand. We are enthusiastic about the future and look forward to working with our partners at Ovzon to meet the growing demand for critical communications systems.” Says Iain Pope, Chairman of GRC Ltd.

 

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Harmonic presents a DVB-SIS solution for satellite distribution

Harmonic’s new SIS (Single Illumination System) solution aims to ensure greater interoperability and provide cost savings to broadcasters with DTT and DTH services.

Based on the DVB-SIS standard, Harmonic’s new solution aims to reduce multiplex distribution costs by approximately 50% compared to the dual lighting method. In this way, broadcasting operators will be able to offer regional channels “with greater efficiency”.

Stephane Cloirec, vice president of video equipment products at Harmonic, provides more details of the solution: “Our new SIS solution optimizes the distribution of DTT and DTH by satellite and offers a comprehensive solution for DVB-SIS, including transmission and reception . Our software solution provides operators with a flexible, scalable and cost-effective approach to increase viewer engagement by including regional channels in DTT offerings.”

Harmonic’s DVB-SIS offering is available as a software license on the ProStream X Video Stream Processor and XOS Edge Advanced Media Processor. Those users interested in migrating to DVB-SIS only need to activate the software at the headend and at the transmitter. Similarly, with Harmonic’s DVB-SIS solution, operators can individually tune the bandwidth of regional channels, “improving distribution efficiency and flexibility.”

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Aicox Soluciones participates as a speaker at the XIV Seminar held in Santander

Aicox Soluciones participates as a speaker at the XIV Seminar “Satellites as a key element for security and defense and government applications” held in Santander on September 7, 8 and 9.

Carlos Laborda, president of the company, participated as a speaker at the 4th round table held on Thursday 8 with the theme SATCOM Programs and the Participation of the National Space Industry.

 

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Integrasys Solutions for Government Applications in 2021 EDF Proposals: NAUCRATES and RFSHIELD

Aicox is part of the consortium of companies led by Integrasys to coordinate the “RF Interference Removal for Military Services based on Spaces Link”

The European Commission is supporting R&D projects through the program European Defence Fund (EDF) 2021, with almost €1.2 billion for Defence and R&D projects. INTEGRASYS has been selected as one of the companies for obtaining multiple EDF programs, and two projects, thanks to its defence expertise acquired over the years.

Integrasys will be coordinating RFSHIELD “RF Interference Removal for Military Services based on Spaces Link”. The project will take up to 30 months, until June 2025. RFSHIELD will ensure the protection of the SatCom services from intentional and non-intentional interferences, increasing the availability and performance of COMSATCOM/MILSATCOM services for military users. The reason why INTEGRASYS has been designated as coordinator is due to the current expertise that the company has in Interference Removal solutions, with its available CLEANRF product. The consortium of the project is formed by 5 companies, AICOX, MBS, and INGESPACE as INTEGRASYS’ partners, who are also specialized in defence capabilities.

The company has also been awarded NAUCRATES project, which is focused on microsatellites for Geostationary Orbit Surveillance and Intelligence. The project duration will be until December 2025, and the main goal is to design and demonstrate a microsatellite with less than 100kg mass, positioned in a stable orbit outside the GEO belt, as an in-orbit optical sensor with the capability to approach other objects in GEO to take centimetre level resolution images.

Integrasys is highly-oriented to defence solutions as the company is committed to contributing to innovation in this dynamic sector, so EDF 2021 is one of the multiple defence initiatives. “‘’We are very honoured to support defence with the rising threats from more allies nations and we look forward to supporting more missions in the future’’, says Alvaro Sanchez.

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Gallium Nitride (GaN) Amplifiers in Multiple Carrier Operation

GaN amplifier technology has had a real impact on Block Upconverter and SSPA design for Satcom applications. And it’s a hot buzzword in the industry.

Terrasat have implemented GaN into several IBUC models where it is perceived to deliver benefits for customers. It brings advantages:

  • higher power density– delivering higher power in a smaller, lighter enclosure.
  • Reduced power consumption.
  • Cost reduction in some frequency band–output power combinations.

Terrasat Engineers have implemented techniques to compensate for the inherent nonlinearity of GaN devices. This has resulted in a significant reduction in the amount of output power back-off required to meet the MILSTD definition of Linear Power (PLin) which is the useable output power and standard for comparing BUC/SSPA output power performance.

Graph A

 

…significant reduction in the amount of output power back-off required to meet the MILSTD definition of Linear Power (PLin)…

 

 

 

 

 

Limitations that Deserve Respect

All technologies have their strengths and limitations. It is as important to understand the limitations as it is to know the advantages. With GaN devices, limitations can become evident in operations using more than one carrier. This is not to say that it cannot be used with multiple carriers. But GaN performs differently than GaAs or TWTA amplifiers with respect to multicarrier operation. There are two situations where this limitation should be respected.

First, with a GaAs amplifier, you typically see a relatively linear and continuous IMD3 improvement with output power back-off. Below in Graph A is an IMD3 plot for a 200W C IBUC R GaAs amplifier. (The purple line is the -22 dBc IMD3 part of the MIL-STD linearity definition).

Graph B

 

 

GaN performs differently than GaAs or TWTA amplifiers with respect to multicarrier operation.

 

 

 

 

 

GaN & GaAs Challenges

You can see from this plot that IMD3 with a GaAs amplifier decreases rapidly and in a fairly strong correlation to an increase in output power backoff.

With a GaN unit there is a different result. Please see the IMD3 plot below of a 200W Full Ku IBUC G GaN unit. Things start out fine, but the curve quickly starts to flatten. Then at about 6 dB back-off it hits a “floor”. It doesn’t get any better. This is a characteristic of GaN devices that cannot be overcome.

What this means is that there is a limitation to the quantity of carriers that can be accommodated.

The second limitation is a bit scarier. It only shows up in situations with widely separated carriers. By the MIL-STD definition, all manufacturers measure IMD at a 5 MHz offset for specifications shown on the data sheet. Graph C shows IMD products at wider offsets.

The red line is the defined -22 dBc IMD level. The other lines plot IMD above and below the test channels at saturated power and then with 1 dB of output power back-off. At the 5 MHz offset there is clearly no problem meeting the -22 dBc requirement. However, this shows how the intermodulation products are increasing in intensity as the carrier offset increases. Whereas logic from working with amplifiers would say that the further two carriers are from each other, the less they will interact, it turns out that the opposite is true with GaN devices. With carriers spaced more than 25 MHz apart, there will be intermodulation products that may interfere with other services.

Graph C

GaN technology, when implemented well, can provide many benefits in terms of size, weight, and power consumption

At Terrasat we strive to enable our customers to make informed decisions. One thing we do not want is for any of our customers to learn the facts only after they install and commission their terminal. As a general statement Terrasat Engineering advises caution in planning carrier spacing greater than 20 MHz.

In summary, GaN technology, when implemented well, can provide many benefits in terms of size, weight, and power consumption. It is prudent to take the multi-carrier limitations into consideration when determining what BUC to invest in for a site.

Please note that the manufacturers of the GaN devices are working on a next generation of devices that will mitigate these limitations. This information is applicable to GaN amplifiers available as of this writing and we look forward to improvements.

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NewTek unveils CaptureCast™, world’s first NDI®-native, fully automated, lecture capture solution

The turnkey micro-broadcast solution captures, streams, enriches and shares video, to empower and engage.

Newtek-CaptureCast

NewTek, the leader in IP-based video technology and part of the Vizrt Group, announces today the latest in its innovative portfolio, CaptureCast; a ground-breaking multi-input, multi-room recording and live streaming technology to drive active participation, engagement, and experience for remote and hybrid learning.

The IP-based lecture capture and micro-broadcasting system will connect teachers in any room across campus to their students tuning in from anywhere in the world – powered by NDI®, the globally standardized video-over-IP technology. Easy to implement and fully autonomous, CaptureCast doesn’t require a dedicated operator leaving teachers more time, attention, and energy for their students.

 

“Video is embedded in every area of society and in today’s world anyone can get on camera and connect to an audience. Micro-broadcasting has become a ‘must have’ in education to meet the growing need of servicing distance learners, and outfitting rooms for flex/hybrid instructions to deliver an enhanced experience for remote students.”

William Waters, Head of Product Management, NewTek

Connect, globally.

CaptureCast is the first solution on the market to harness the power of NDI® by connecting camera apps on mobile, software screen capture, and thousands of compatible devices like PTZ cameras. Using NDI, CaptureCast also incorporates direct connection with video communication applications including Microsoft® Teams, Zoom, among others.

Record, automatically.

Schools are challenged with delivering high quality, impactful videos to keep remote learners engaged and provide accessible class materials and the means to replay missed sessions if needed. CaptureCast allows remote learners to access content in real-time and rewatch and review on-demand.

The innovative automation inside CaptureCast records any live devices such as cameras, mics, tablets, document cameras, and nearly any digital teaching device offering HD video out, enabling remote learners to interact with video content more dynamically.

Stream, seamlessly.

Furthermore, CaptureCast takes any live capture and instantaneously replicates it across education and streaming platforms to empower remote learners to switch between viewpoints, cameras, or screens to completely personalize, and take control of their learning experience.

Enrich, education.

All student’s learning gaps are unique, and video must be curated around unique learning needs. CaptureCast ensures every single session is enriched with metadata; tagging keywords, pulling data from slide decks, and spoken word which is made available to learners to better access the content and jump straight to what they are looking for.

Automate video.

Every teacher, course, and classroom can have varying issues operating classroom recording and live streaming on an ongoing basis. To solve this challenge, CaptureCast automates the entire record-stream-enrichment process. It moves between different set-ups for any given class, to a pre-programmed schedule or timetable, and intelligently maps the captured content to common learning or content management systems – all without any input from teaching or IT staff. Each set-up can be customized to any style of lecture, speaker, or for totally exceptional and out-of-the-box learning experiences.

 

“Quality, easy to use video tools are a necessity for educational institutions to engage the needs of all students, whether in the classroom or at home. Expanding our solutions into this market is incredibly exciting and a testament to the success and growth of NewTek over the past few years, due, in no small part to its strong channel partner program. The introduction of CaptureCast provides opportunities for our existing partners, as well as new partners across the education ecosystem.”

Barbara Spicek, President and GM of NewTek.

 

For more information, please visit https://www.newtek.com/capturecast/

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Hughes Successfully Tests 5G Satellite Backhaul, Verifies Interoperability

Hughes JUPITER System Ground Platform is 5G Ready for Mobile Network Operators Today

Hughes Network Systems, LLC an innovator in satellite and multi-transport technologies and networks for 50 years, today announced the successful testing of 5G satellite backhaul with the company’s JUPITER™ System ground platform. Over a series of tests at its Germantown, MD, gateway, Hughes engineers connected 5G smartphones to the internet with JUPITER System infrastructure – including a very small aperture terminal (VSAT), gateway and high throughput satellite. The tests validated the compatibility of the Hughes technology with a 5G open radio access network (O-RAN) system, representative of any 3GPP standards-based, standalone 5G deployment.

“These interoperability tests confirm the suitability and ease of employing the JUPITER System for 5G cellular backhaul,” said Bhanu Durvasula, vice president, international division at Hughes. “We’ve built our ground platform to be future-proof, so customers have a roadmap to transition from LTE traffic today to 5G tomorrow, with the ease of a software update.”

Around the world, mobile network operators currently employ JUPITER System equipment to power thousands of backhaul sites for 2G, 3G and LTE traffic – now with a clear path to 5G.

“In our ever-connected world, satellite plays an essential role in helping mobile network operators serve customers everywhere, even in places where terrestrial solutions are not feasible,” continued Durvasula. “Satellite provides resiliency for terrestrial networks during peak hours and emergencies and, as part of the 5G network of networks, will also fill the gaps in terrestrial systems.”

The tests were conducted across the deployable, standards-based 5G Open RAN-compliant system from COMSovereign (NASDAQ: COMS), a U.S.-based developer of 4G LTE advanced and 5G communication systems and solutions. The same system is in use by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) for evaluation and demonstration of 5G systems.

“We look forward to potential opportunities to work with Hughes and to assist the entire satellite communications industry in harnessing state-of-the-art 5G and beyond technology,” said Dr. Dustin McIntire, CTO of COMSovereign. “Satellite and mobile operators can deploy our 5G solution on their existing hardware without disrupting their architectures, along with excellent quality of experience and maximum utilization of available bandwidth.”

In use on more than 75 satellites worldwide, the JUPITER System is the most widely used ground platform, setting the de facto standard for conventional and high-throughput implementations such as satellite internet, enterprise networking, community Wi-Fi hotspots and cellular backhaul.

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