Feb.04

Flight of the Rooster

OBOROS

January 28th was celebrated the world over as Chinese New Year, the year of the rooster. Rooster holds the significance of the messenger of the dawn in almost every culture, which marks the start of the day with the rising of the sun from the East. Coincidentally, this time the rooster is crowing the dawn of the Chinese leadership in the verticals of economy, trade, finance, technology and space frontiers. The rooster, despite its long distance travelling voice and fierce appearance, is not considered a predator nor an easy prey. China, despite its considerable military might, achieved its leadership status without a single military campaign and sound of its development echoes across the globe as well as the space surrounding it.

United States withdrawal from Trans Pacific Partnership of 12 economies, comprising 40% of World’s total GDP, has created a void of leadership as well as has made the future of free trade alliance uncertain. This withdrawal of the biggest economy of the world cannot be related to the British exit from the European Union but both scenarios create equal opportunities for the 2nd largest economy of the world, The People’s Republic of China. Initially covering most of the Asia, Europe and Africa, China’s trade initiative ‘One Belt, One Road’ may also cover Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada and Latin America if initially not invited China buckles up on the driving seat of TPP.
On 27th of December, 2016 China issued their Space Policy in a whitepaper, titled “China’s Space Activities in 2016”. The paper reviewed achievements of Chinese space activities and outlined major activities for the next five years. (Source: Xinhua)
The paper briefly covers success stories of all aspects of Chinese space activities with emphasis on positioning and navigation system BeiDou. With 14 satellites in the orbit and finally getting a total of 35 in the constellation, the navigation system will surpass other GNSS; the US’s GPS, EU’s Galileo and Russia’s GLONASS. The navigation system will complement the marine and land trade routes initiative of Chinese government ‘One Belt, One Road’, covering most of the globe with heavy investment on the routes and associated industries. Most member countries of the route and developing economies and will easily adapt to the BeiDou system and other Chinese space initiatives. The whitepaper mentions in ‘Key areas for future cooperation’;
‘Construction of the Belt and Road Initiative Space Information Corridor, including earth observation, communications and broadcasting, navigation and positioning, and other types of satellite-related development; ground and application system construction; and application product development’.

‘Space Information Corridor’ a broad term for a bouquet of potential multidimensional services of variable magnitudes. Since this trade initiative spans most populated as well as culturally diverse regions with unpredictable economic and political circumstances, designing and managing such information corridor will be a complex task. Considering the rising interest of most of the member countries in space related activities, a potential space alliance like that of ESA is pretty much possible. Although some countries have a space program and even they own satellites orbiting the planet at different altitudes, manufacturing and launching of such space crafts are not indigenous to most of such programs.

These trade activities will create multiple opportunities for government and private sector institutions including but not limited to; commercial, financial, power, manufacturers, import/export entities etc. to extend their presence along the routes. All of the benefiting organizations are already upgrading their processes in line with development in technologies like Cloud Computing, IoT (Internet of Things), Artificial Intelligence, Fleet Management etc. This will result in generation of bits and bytes in the magnitudes of mega and giga every second. Considering marine routes and large areas of varying terrains of the regions of the land routes, Satellite Communication will be the only viable solution for communicating and managing such amount of data. Moreover, China like any other leadership will safeguard its own interests in these regional trade routes and will complement it through close monitoring, secure communication and accurate navigation. Again all of of these can only be served by special purpose satellites.

I have created an online survey regarding this ‘Space Information Corridor’. Feel free to submit your valued feedback and it will be published as an analysis.

Telecom

Jul.30

Australlite

Introduction

Utilizing the announced Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites constellations of OneWeb, SpaceX, LeoSat & Samsung to provide high speed connectivity to entire Australian continent with performance better than fiber networks. This project can eliminate high cost NBN roll out to scattered populations and will considerably improve disaster management. Providing high speed connectivity for mobile communication, internet, high resolution TV broadcast as well as utilizing technologies like IoT & Cloud for improvement in security, education, health, agriculture, livestock farming, mineral resources, wildlife, and environment without any coverage black-spots. This network will not require any infrastructure installations and will help the Government to generate revenues by issuing spectrum licenses to local as well as foreign investors for providing services directly to the end user.

2011 Census

Census 2011
Source: Regional Statistics by ASGS, 2010-2014

Mobile Black Spot Program

The Australian Government’s $100 million Mobile Black Spot Program will deliver almost 500 new or upgraded mobile base stations around Australia

MBSP

Mobile Black Spot Program
S
ource: https://data.gov.au/dataset/mobile-black-spot-programme-funded-base-stations

No or Poor Coverage

The Department of Communications and the Arts has received 10802 nominations of regional locations with poor or no mobile coverage from members of the public

NPC

No or Poor Coverage Complains
Source: https://data.gov.au/dataset/community-reports-of-poor-or-no-mobile-coverage

Result

Scattered population, mainly based on the coastal areas with thousands of kilometers travel between big cities makes Australia prone to such area specific connectivity. This makes Australia a country of multiple virtual scattered islands.

2016-07-31 12.12.47

Challenges

  • Australia still lags behind every developed as well as many developing countries in terms of network availability and quality
  • Rolling out fiber, copper, microwave and even traditional satellite communication networks are expensive and require infrastructure installations
  • World of technology is developing every passing moment and amount of data communicated is increasing exponentially due to growth of technologies like; IoT, Cloud, HD TV, UHD TV, VR, AI etc. Current networks won’t be able to match this growth
  • Being the guardian of Antarctica and Great Barrier Reef, monitoring wildlife, environment, and marine life in real time is Australia’s responsibility. Again heavy costs and infrastructure requirements limit these observations
  • Disaster management in real time without dependency on infrastructure in remote regions
  • Managing agricultural farms, livestock monitoring in larger areas in real time
  • Education and health services in remote areas at lower costs
  • Broadcasting HD, UHD, 12K and 3D TV channels in urban and rural areas

Solution

Deployment of announced Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) High Throughput Satellites (HTS) constellations by SpaceX, OneWeb, Samsung and LeoSat will create corresponding networks of around 10,000 satellites orbiting the planet. With high capacity, lower latency, small terminals and global coverage these networks will easily substitute any terrestrial network.

Airbus_OneWeb_900-satellites_video-879x485
OneWeb Constellation (Source: http://spacenews.com/oneweb-satellites-to-settle-in-exploration-park-florida-with-eyes-on-business-beyond-oneweb/)

These constellations are inevitable and are backed by technology giants. Australia must adopt to the change and utilize maximum of the capacity from the networks, addressing all the above mentioned challenges with considerable lower CAPEX and OPEX. Australia can generate huge revenues as well by regulating the radio frequency allocations and by awarding licenses to local and foreign companies for providing the services. This change will be embraced happily by the public as well as they will be connected anywhere, anytime with best services and portable devices to eliminate limitations on mobility.

Telecom

Sep.15

Ring Computing: Challenges & Advantages

As discussed in previous articles; Ring Computing will be an independent Extra Terrestrial Network, born to communicate. Although it’s just a concept but sooner or later this concept will become inevitable. It will not be just another innovation in Satcom advancement but will serve the purpose of a stable backup network for already in use networks.

Despite rapid growth of telecommunication networks there are still so many un-served & under-served areas on both land and sea. Typically, such areas are served by conventional satellite communication networks. Which may be a viable solution to corporations and government customers but not affordable to end user or even SME’s due to expensive bandwidth and specialized DTE (Data Terminal Equipment) and solutions. Even such last mile solutions have limited services, which may be increased but you have to pay exponentially rising rates. Ring Computing on the other hand will be a solution to overcome such limitations at reduced rates.

Due to huge volume of the network, Ring Computing has to be served by a constellation of satellites by a single or multiple operators. Operators will to join the venture has to plan added payload to their upcoming satellites; which will include on-board routing, switching, processing and data storage equipment  along with added antennas to talk with other satellites in the constellation. Like any other similar project, Ring Computing will face some challenges and they have to be mapped against advantages it may bring, to calculate the feasibility of such deployment.

Challenges

  • This network will definitely require a mountain of investment, keeping in view the cost required for Research & Development and finally deployment. But once deployed Ring Computing will record somewhat stable OPEX and very high ROI.
  • Additional payload and power requirement for added on-board equipment will be a challenge for satellite manufacturers. Behavior of processing, routing and database management at such an altitude & atmosphere will be a problem too. These problems can be resolved in the above mentioned R&D and initial investment.
  • Data privacy of Satellite Operators existing customer can be questioned. Ring Computing will not overlap the conventional physical layer of existing customers, unless they are willing to join the dawn of new technology. Satellite Operators joining the constellation will just have an added payload and a passage for wireless data to the neighboring satellites. There planned Satcom operations for their existing customers will not be disturbed. And for the new customers joining the Ring, data security will be available like any other encryption standards currently being used in public or private networks.
  • Larger size of satellite due to added payloads and increased power requirements can be a point of concern for environmentalists already debating issue of space debris. This can be resolved by making new satellites and on-board components easily upgradable and replaceable. Just a couple of spacecrafts will be required for savior voyages for regular upgrade and replacement of the components, including even antennas, solar panels & battery banks. This is a solution which can be worked on even if Ring Computing fails to make an appearance. It will reduce the costs of launching a new bird every few months and the environmental footprint of space debris will also be reduced.

These are the major challenges Ring Computing can face and their preliminary solutions. Now let’s take a quick look at advantages Ring Computing may bring.

Advantages

  • A backup network for the already deployed multiple networks on the planet with outreach to every un-served and under-served area.
  • Inter-satellite communication in the constellation to guarantee reduced delays faced by multiple hops over different satellites connecting customers not covered by a single satellite.
  • Distributed data storage on different satellites in the constellation for a secure database backup for data warehousing.
  • Ring Computing network will be there in any worst case scenario on earth with damages to existing networks.
  • Disaster relief activities and monitoring without deploying any additional infrastructure
  • Real time connectivity for travelers on aircraft and ships.
  • DTH services can be provided with all the channels available and using a single antenna for downlinking and up linking.
  • This network can be used to serve the nature by environmental monitoring, updating any unusual natural phenomenon and saving the environment by the damage laying fiber or erecting towers for microwave links.

Summarizing; this concept faces challenges before its deployment but once deployed it will have limitless possibilities to take Satcom technology to whole new level and its users along with.

You are welcome to keep in touch and share your feedback through twitterLinkedIn & my personal website.

Telecom

Aug.13

Unsung Heroes!

We live in the era where we celebrate different days dedicated to our families, friends, loved ones, teachers and doctors. We owe much of our lives to them as they have direct impact on our life. Being a social animal we are bound to respect our families, friends and professionals like doctors, soldiers, policemen, firefighters, journalists for saving our lives, keeping us aware and protecting us. Yet there is a breed of unsung heroes making our life so much comfortable without demanding any recognition.

You face an emergency situation and without hesitation you pick up your cellular phone and make an SOS call and within a few moments Emergency Response units are at your exact location. Your area is hit by a natural disaster, but within a few hours all the lifesaving organizations are on a well-coordinated mission to save people. Not only this, news channels start broadcasting live from the location keeping everyone around the globe aware of the situation. Your family is in New York and you are on a business trip to Hong Kong and it’s your daughter’s birthday, no worries, you just pick up your smart phone and make her day with a video call. Going on a vacation to Bahamas! book your flights, reserve hotel room and rent a car just by sitting on your office desk. When you reach your destination you drive the rented car right from the airport and using GPS you roam about in the city you had never been to like you lived there for decades. You can climb the summits of Everest or K2 without any hesitation even though there is no cellular coverage but you have your satellite phone with you, nothing beats tweeting from top of the world.

Can we imagine going back even a couple of decades? Internet and cellular communication has become a basic need of our lives. We easily browse Wikipedia for anything we need to know or we simply Google it from anywhere in the world. Just take out a moment and think that there are thousands of people at the back making it the way it is. Yes my friend the professionals of telecommunication technology working round the clock to make our lives easier moment by moment. They are the scientists, researchers, engineers, technicians and riggers working to develop gadgets, software, rolling out & connecting networks and keeping them operational 24×7 sacrificing their own personal and social lives. They are always there to spread your smiles and wipe your tears. Take a moment and imagine a world without internet, audio/video calling, online video streaming, live news and sports broadcasts, ATM, online shopping, Google, twitter, Facebook.

Uncategorized,Telecom