There is no doubt that communications via satellite figure prominently as telecoms systems evolve. It is only through satcoms that complete coverage can be achieved in remote areas, at sea, in the air or on the move. However, to create opportunities for the satellite industry, technical solutions have to be developed that involve actors from both the satcom and terrestrial communities.
Service providers will integrate satellite-based solutions if they find these solutions can generate revenue by attracting subscribers. Integration with terrestrial networks must happen for users to get access to services that are designed for terrestrial networks, but not specifically for satellite networks. These studies delve into this necessary integration.
The first study entitled “Benefit analysis of integration of Mobile Satellite Systems in Terrestrial Mobile networks”, aims to optimise the role of satellites in an integrated satellite/terrestrial mobile network and to maximise the take up of integrated services by identifying opportunities, analyse their impact and their implementation and to develop a cost benefit analysis to assess these approaches.
A range of scenarios covers integration with the popular Long Term Evolution (LTE) –release 8 and above. The third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) - System Architecture Evolution (SAE), based on all IP - Evolved Packet Core (EPC) networks are studied for coupling satellite and terrestrial networks.
The second study, “The role of satellite in converged fixed/mobile/broadcast environment” takes one step further and seeks the technical feasibility of integrating satellite networks with terrestrial LTE and potentially LTE-Advanced technologies to realise the objectives of offering seamless video delivery, maintaining integrity and wherever applicable, adapting and enriching the quality of video media across the whole distribution chain.
This study considers the impact and benefits from the use of advanced video technologies such as multi-layered/multi-view coding schemes such as Scalable Video Coding (SVC) and Multi-View Coding (MVC). It defines a hybrid network architecture that interfaces to 3GPP LTE, as well as to DVB satellite systems, such as DVB-S2, -SH or the emerging -NGH. Convergence between satellite and cellular network systems will inherently depend on the ability of a system to control data and media flows over different access technologies. The use of newly adapted MPEG DASH protocol will be evaluated.
MPEG DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) is developing an ISO Standard (ISO/IEC 23009-1) that should be finalised by early 2012. As the name suggests, DASH is a standard for adaptive streaming over HTTP that has the potential to replace existing proprietary technologies. A unified standard would be a boon to content publishers who could produce one set of files that play on all DASH-compatible devices.
A third study is planned to address "Service delivery over integrated satellite terrestrial networks". This study will: define the technical and economic conditions for which a satellite network can be considered for integration with terrestrial ones into an end to end seamless service provision architecture; assess the impacts of these requirements on the definition of satellite networks; define the requirements for interoperable service management interfaces, and assess the need for the development of specific service management products.
For more information see the links in the column to the right.
