Given the shortage of radio spectrum to support expected levels of mobile broadband usage in future, it is no surprise that satellite and other non-radio approaches are moving back into the limelight. Of course, this is partly seen in the rising tendency of regulators to smile on satellite spectrum being used for radio networks, as in Dish’s LTE-only plans for its AWS-4 (formerly mobile satellite) frequencies. But satellite providers themselves also see growing opportunities to play a role in ensuring universal broadband coverage and backhaul, while Google has thrown its weight behind that concept that appears every few years, is roundly derided and then disappears ‘ the ‘balloon’ or stratellite.
Google may have its own tongue in its cheek in adopting the label ‘Project Loon’ for its latest bid to provide internet access ‘ and of course its own web services and advertising ‘ to the whole world. The initiative will involve releasing specialized weather balloons into the stratosphere to float and be steered by wind ‘ despite the apparent lack of control that implies, in sufficient numbers, they form a mesh, says Google, with signals bouncing between them. Users can connect to the balloon network using a dedicated antenna attached to their buildings. The first pilot will run this year in New Zealand.
The technology has been pioneered by US-based Space Data, with which Google has been working since 2008. That firm provides low cost platforms for rural and remote data and voice communications, often for military use, via its high altitude SkySite network of balloons. It put SkySite into the sky in late 2009, running CDMA over weather balloons and providing private communications to the oil and gas, transportation and utilities industries in the southern US (initially Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas and the Gulf of Mexico). Miniaturized base stations weighing a few pounds are carried by the balloons, to reach a 20,000 square mile coverage area from 60,000 feet.
‘There are many terrestrial challenges to internet connectivity’jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an internet connection is more than a month’s income,’ said Mike Cassidy, project lead on Project Loon. ‘Solving these problems isn’t simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we’re unveiling our latest moonshot from Google – balloon-powered internet access.’
Last fall, Space Data and partner Lemko announced the world’s first satellite-based commercial LTE network in Atqasuk, Alaska, using the latter’s patented DiMoWiNe (Distributed Mobile Wireless Network) software. This is a virtualized core software program colocated at the eNodeB. By virtualizing the core, all switching and routing in the network is moved to the network’s edge, resulting in a LTE solution with greater latency tolerances and the ability to deliver mobile broadband over satellite. DiMoWiNe reduces the network’s signaling traffic and all backhaul is transported as an over-the-top IP application.
Meanwhile, another Google-backed venture in the skies, satellite operator O3b Networks, has signed a multimillion dollar, multiyear deal with Malaysian managed infrastructure services provider Maju Nusa, to upgrade its satellite backhaul to support 3G data services. Awarded under the auspices of Malaysia’s Ministry of Communications, the agreeement allows Maju Nusa to leverage O3b’s upcoming satellite network to deploy mobile data services further into underserved rural communities.
“For many, this will mean that they will go from zero connectivity to 3G for cellular services practically overnight,” said Maju Nusa’s managing director Shahruddin Salehuddin. “At present people commonly need to travel out of their village simply to make a phone call. As well as helping us improve our service, O3b helps to reduce capex costs, aggregating our existing 111 sites over Peninsular Malaysia into only 20 customer terminal locations.”
O3b CEO Steve Collar said that the deal represents the first large-scale 3G deployment backhauled over satellite in the world. “That doesn’t really exist anywhere in the world, and that’s mainly because the cost of the satellite bandwidth is too high and the performance isn’t too great,” Collar told Mobile World Europe. “600ms latency is crappy for voice and data, and in mobile everything is encapsulated, so you can’t overcome or compensate for that latency.”
O3b will launch its first four satellites next week, followed by a further four in September, and commercial services will begin in November. Maju Nusa will switch its traffic to the O3b network in early 2014. The satellite firm has signed around 20 customers to date and says it has presold “somewhere between a third and half” of its network capacity.
The venture attracted considerable attention when it gained investment from Google for its plan to
deploy a network of MEO (medium earth orbit) satellites to deliver low latency services to rural areas. Its activities could tie in with other Google projects in future, amid reports that it is conducting talks with various regulators in Africa and south east Asia about gaining spectrum and licences to augment satellite with higher speed, lower cost rural options such as white spaces networks or high altitude balloons.