Increased Broadband Capacity Demand Drives Overlap of FSS, MSS Systems

Blurring involves FSS providers trying to figure out how to approximate a mobile satellite service capacity, said David Helfgott, Inmarsat Government president. The need for this integration of requirements is also driven by increases in the users’ demand for mobility, global reach and increased bandwidth, he said. Fixed satellite service providers “who have traditionally put bandwidth on specific geographical areas are now thinking they need to react to these trends,” he added. Mobile satellite operators served the shipping market with mostly lower data rate services, like voice, fax and 64 kbps links, said Nigel Gibson, Telesat’s International Sales vice president. “What’s been happening in recent years is vessels are increasingly using FSS capacity on the high seas to take advantage of broadband speeds, rather than expanding their use of MSS."

Some FSS operators said FSS is better-suited to deliver more efficient capacity than the MSS market. MSS operators have less spectrum with higher cost per bit than FSS operators, said Dave Rehbehn, Hughes Network Systems senior director. “The result is that FSS-based providers are often able to deliver high bandwidth mobility services at lower cost than MSS providers.” Broadband demand has grown across most shipping sectors, Gibson said. MSS, “with its limited available bandwidth, cannot compete with FSS in terms of the ‘bit per buck’ equation,” he added.

Fixed satellite providers “are trying to stitch together something that looks like MSS, which is what we have already developed globally,” Helfgott said: MSS providers, like Inmarsat, have had to provide coverage everywhere “because the user is moving all the time."

The maritime markets are early adopters of this shared technology, the FSS companies said. “Both the airborne and maritime markets are showing a lot of activity, with on-board train services also emerging,” Rehbehn said. Gibson said he expects demand for this shared service to proliferate in the airline business: “These days, people are using their smartphones and iPads. They won’t just be using them in Starbucks, they'll be using them onboard aircraft as well.”

The government is probably the most progressive and tech savvy user of mobile communications, especially satellite communications, Helfgott said. Inmarsat’s forthcoming Global Xpress system was designed to complement military satellites, he said. As a Ka-band service scheduled to launch next year, it combines the best of both worlds, “providing bandwidth and mobility,” he added.

Hughes teamed with Row 44 and Intelsat to provide in-flight broadband service for airlines, including Southwest and Norwegian Air Shuttle and it’s testing broadband services to be used on trains, Rehbehn said. Telesat plans to launch a satellite this year that will have strong coverage over South America and its coastal waters, Gibson said.

While FSS operators are expanding services in the mobility market, FSS and MSS likely will not truly become blurred, they said. The trend is more of an increasing overlap in capabilities and costs, said Tim Farrar, MSS consultant. Very small aperture terminal equipment is getting cheaper and smaller, “while MSS data rates are improving,” he said: “The overlap will be focused on where the size of VSAT is not so much of a concern for portability” such as on ships and aircraft, he said.

There will always be a need for MSS, Gibson said. But “recent growth in mobility services for maritime and aero markets has mostly been in FSS,” he said. “MSS is a true portable mobile service, whereas the FSS approach requires using a steerable or flyaway antenna/modem combination to reach end-user devices,” Hughes said. So far, “the current regulatory regime has not been an impediment” for innovation in the mobile space at Hughes, he added. Gibson agreed: “In the mobile space, we don’t see any issues from a regulatory perspective .. That’s evidenced itself in the growth that we've seen over recent years.”