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StatusOngoing
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Status date2012-05-14
The project scope is the development of the Azimuth (satellite modems, data and frequency converters and redundancy switches) and the Elevation (targeting IP applications) product lines.
The Professional Equipment Product range is an important revenue generator for Newtec. With the Azimuth/Elevation development roadmap, Newtec wants to enlarge its market share and secure its revenue. The objectives are threefold:
- Commercially, reinforce Newtec’s position on the traditional broadcast market segments (Direct-to-Home, Primary Distribution, Permanent Contribution and Content Exchange) but also develop other markets (Telcos, Backbone, Corporates and IP trunking).
- Technological: integrate enhanced features such as TCP acceleration, encryption, QoS, etc. and in parallel realise a new architecture that can support more functionalities and drives down the cost.
- Standardisation objective: further adherence to standards (such as DVB-S2, ACM, DVB-RCS, GSE). Newtec equipments are compliant with industry standards in order to be used in the widest range of possible applications.
The development of a new hardware and software platform and simpler, more user oriented Graphical User Interface, together with commercial opportunities based developments will enable Newtec to realize the project objectives.
The AziSat project is built to comply with the following objectives:
- Secure and increase Newtec market shares in the Broadcast market,
- Increase significantly Newtec market shares in the IP trunking market,
- Opportunistically, increase the Newtec presence in the Telco market.
Features of the first three phases (release 6 up to 8) are:
- A simpler, market-oriented product portfolio,
- The possibility to scramble a full TV multiplex (up to 30 programs) for primary distribution of free-to-air TV multiplex. This feature is introduced on the AZ110 broadcast modulator,
- Redundancy capability for all Azimuth/Elevation products, including those connected to Gigabit Ethernet networks (first evolution of the redundancy feature),
- A portfolio of 1+1 redundancy configurations with simple user interface , in line with the new product portfolio,
- QoS traffic prioritization on the Elevation series modems, allowing the satellite network operator to prioritize IP traffic streams and consequently optimize delay of real time traffic, when mixed with non-real time traffic,
- A very accurate link margin estimator (NoDE) on the Azimuth and Elevation series demodulators. The NoDE tool enables easy determination and, in a very short time, the optimum operating point of the transponder especially when higher-order modulation schemes such as 16APSK or 32APSK are used. Before the NoDE tool was available, complex measurements tools and time consuming transmission tests were necessary to find this optimum point of operation,
- A DVB-S2 standard based ACM (Adaptive Coding and Modulation) controller/client solution. This unique FlexACM® capability, which is the first of its kind, allows implementation of ACM in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations, for unidirectional as well as bidirectional links. The introduction of FlexACM® into the Newtec Elevation product line marks another step forward for adaptive coding and modulation technology up to 32APSK 9/10; previously the complexity of ACM meant that no commercial systems were available for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint SCPC/MCPC systems for IP trunking and IP backbone systems,
- A high-end demodulator board guaranteeing constant-bit-rate and constant end-to-end delay for DVB-S2 packetized streams with the optional ISSY synchronizer,
- A Graphical User Interface (GUI) optimized for Elevation series IP modems,
- An extended L-band interface on modulators covering the 950-2150 MHz frequency band,
- The very efficient Newtec proprietary XPE decapsulator on the IP receiver EL940,
- A high speed 155 Mbit/s chip based DVB-S2 IP demodulator optimized for 72 MHz transponders,
- L-band modulators with high output power,
- A multiplexer providing L-band and 48V/3A DC power for 8 W Ku-band and 20 W C-band Block up-converters,
- A C-band block upconverter covering the 5.85-7.05 GHz frequency span,
- A redundancy switching system, optimized for IP traffic,
- An ACM controller, shaper & encapsulator with support of Layer 2 shaping,
- Encryption of the baseband frames of DVB-S2 based transmssions.
The project, encompassing the years 2008-2011, is phased in slices of 6 months. Every phase covers the development of features which will allow Newtec to stay competitive and introduce unique selling points.
The AziSat project was successfully completed in September 2011.