Broadband Satellites: A Bucket of Confusion

Broadband Satellites: A Bucket of Confusion

Posted by Sam Churchill on November 9th, 2010

CNET’s Marguerite Reardon, a well-regarded journalist, is helping HughesNet drum up some enthusiasm by noting they’ll someday offer speeds between 5-20 Mbps, says Karl Bode at Broadband Reports.

In the first half of 2012, Hughes Network Systems, hopes to launch their Jupiter satellite, designed by Space Systems Loral. It will offer more than 100 gigabits per second of capacity — more than 10 times the capacity the company currently offers on its existing satellite, Spaceway3, launched in 2008.

But then Broadband Reports apparently gets it wrong, saying “HughesNet has long promised that their high capacity ViaSat-1 satellite would help improve things”…

Actually, HughesNet is the chief North American competitor for ViaSat/WildBlue. Hughes operates Hughes Spaceway 3. ViaSat operates competitor WildBlue.

The new high capacity (Ka-band) satellites from the respective companies are ViaSat-1 (above), scheduled for launch in the first half of 2011, and the Hughes Jupiter-1, scheduled for launch in the first half of 2012.

ViaSat operates WildBlue, which serves over 400,000 subscribers within the 48 contiguous United States. WildBlue began offering residential broadband satellite access in June 2005. WildBlue was acquired by ViaSat on October 1, 2009 for $568 million. They currently holds a 44 percent of the U.S. satellite ISP market

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ViaSat’s new Ka-band ViaSat-1, is aimed at enhancing fixed broadband in the United States. The chart (below) shows the capacity of ViaSat-1. ViaSat-1 was designed by SS Loral. ViaSat-1 involves a collaborative effort between ViaSat, Loral, Telesat and Eutelsat.

The similar (but different) Hughes Jupiter was also designed by SS Loral.

Hughes Network Systems, which owns Spaceway3, was sold to SkyTerra Communications (nowLightsquared) in January 2003.

SkyTerra (now Lightsquared) is planning to launch huge satphone birds with a terrestrial LTE component. These are not for fixed broadband satellite service.

SkyTerra 1 & 2 satellites are Ka band spot beam birds for mobile phones. They are based on the Boeing 702 Geo-Mobile bus. SkyTerra 1 (for satphones) arrived in Baikonur last month in preparation for launch.SkyTerra 1 is planned to launch this November 13 by ILS. It features a 22-meter antenna — the largest commercial antenna reflector to be put into service.

The big unanswered question is how North America can support two competing fixed broadband satellites (ViaSat-1 and Jupiter-1), as well as two huge satphone platforms (LightSquared’s Skyterra-1, using 1.6 GHz) and TerraStar-1, using 2 GHz (but how many people have heard of it). Plus their four in-orbit spares. Not to mention ICO. Perhaps it’s the magic of high frequency trading.

source : dailywireless.org