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87-417: Satmed was formed to address the problem that in many remote regions of developing countries there is not only a significant lack of facilities and trained health professionals, but also no communications infrastructure to remote villages (and so no access to eHealth), or even a reliable electricity supply. Satellite broadband technology is often the only solution, and one that can provide a fast connection over

174-638: A 'virtual clinic' to connect local and Archemed doctors in Asmara and the provinces, with hands-on consultations and training in surgery (including cardiac surgery) intensive care, oncology, infectious diseases, etc., and for archiving and sharing medical images for pathology across the organisation. In April 2016, the Satmed platform was deployed at the CURE Hôpital des Enfants au Niger in Niamey , Niger, which specialises in

261-426: A Service or SaaS applications as well as in other forms of online work. Functions, like live interactive access to a distant computer—such as virtual private networks , can be affected by the high latency. Many TCP protocols were not designed to work in high-latency environments. Medium Earth orbit (MEO) and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations do not have such long delays, as the satellites are closer to

348-469: A budget 4.5million euros. The contract for SES to provide the satellite-enabled cloud-based platform for the Luxembourg Government was expanded and extended in 2017 and again in 2021, to provide the service until 2024. Satmed can provide: The Satmed platform was conceived by SES TechCom, the engineering services division of satellite operator SES , and supported by the Luxembourg Government and

435-449: A consequence it is only 500 mW compared with the normal 2W, thus is poorer in rain. Skylogic's Tooway system also uses an integrated OMT/BUC/LNB assembly called a transmit and receive integrated assembly (TRIA), which is 3W. For large antennas there are also mechanical struts that prevent them to move due to strong winds, losing the pointing and causing service interruption A maritime VSAT has features that allow it to be operated on

522-465: A fixed area for a period of up to five years, and able to provide both continuous surveillance to ground assets as well as to service extremely low-latency communications networks. This project was cancelled in 2012 before it became operational. Onboard batteries would charge during daylight hours through solar panels covering the wings and would provide power to the plane during night. Ground-based satellite internet dishes would relay signals to and from

609-582: A focus on child health and training of students and medical staff. Satmed has been deployed in the Asmara Medical School and Orotta Referral Hospital (both in the capital city Asmara and the only institutes of advanced secondary and tertiary care in Eritrea) and in provincial hospitals in Keren and Barentu. The Satmed system is primarily used for teaching students (with a focus on mother-child care), to provide

696-502: A means of combating limited bandwidth on airplanes and offering passengers usable internet speeds. As of 2024, companies providing home internet service in the United States via satellite included ViaSat , through its Exede brand, EchoStar , through subsidiary HughesNet , Starlink , and Project Kuiper . The EU plans to commence the IRIS² project in the 2020s. As of 2023, China

783-659: A member of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), and at the 2014 CGI Annual Meeting announced its Commitment to Action in the form of the Satmed platform. The Satmed pilot phase was originally intended to start in mid-2015, but the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa meant that programme was brought forward and Satmed was first deployed in Sierra Leone in support of the fight against Ebola in November 2014. In September 2016,

870-834: A new generation of high-powered GEO satellites positioned 35,786 kilometres (22,236 mi) above the equator, operating in K a -band (18.3–30 GHz) mode. These new purpose-built satellites are designed and optimized for broadband applications, employing many narrow spot beams, which target a much smaller area than the broad beams used by earlier communication satellites. This spot beam technology allows satellites to reuse assigned bandwidth multiple times which can enable them to achieve much higher overall capacity than conventional broad beam satellites. The spot beams can also increase performance and consequential capacity by focusing more power and increased receiver sensitivity into defined concentrated areas. Spot beams are designated as one of two types: subscriber spot beams, which transmit to and from

957-423: A number of ground stations known as gateways that relay Internet data to and from the satellite via radio waves ( microwave ), and further ground stations to serve each subscriber, with a small antenna and transceiver . Other components of a satellite Internet system include a modem at the user end which links the user's network with the transceiver, and a centralized network operations centre (NOC) for monitoring

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1044-453: A pilot phase for the design and evolution of the platform (developed by SES TechCom Services , a subsidiary of satellite operator SES and Berlin-based telemedicine technology company, e-Medical Communication), Satmed deployed satellite terminal equipment and the software platform to partner organisations, including NGOs, hospitals, medical universities, and other health care providers active in areas of Bangladesh, Benin, Eritrea, Guinea, Niger,

1131-558: A regular basis to treat patients on-site and to offer prevention measures and health monitoring. Portable devices such as tablets are used to collect patient data, which is then processed, aggregated and synchronised on Satmed's cloud platform. Satmed also provides communication with doctors and medical experts around the world via video conferencing, and training of local medical professionals. In addition, Satmed's text messaging facility allows doctors to keep tabs on large group of patients living in remote villages whose main form of contact with

1218-771: A second Satmed platform was deployed at Centre de Dépistage et de traitement de l’Ulcère de Buruli in Allada, Benin, for FFL to provide communications with doctors and medical experts around the world, access online training tools, establish video conferencing, data collection and analysis, and raise awareness of tropical diseases. The NGO, Archemed – Doctors for Children in Need, based in Möhnesee, Germany. has been active in Eritrea for over ten years providing visiting teams of doctors, nurses and technicians coordinated by permanent local project partners, with

1305-439: A ship at sea. A ship that is underway is in continuous motion in all axes. The antenna part of a marine VSAT system must be stabilized with respect to the horizon and true north as the ship moves beneath it. Motors and sensors are used to keep the antenna pointed accurately at the satellite. This enables it to transmit to and receive from the satellite while minimising losses and interference with adjacent satellites. New technology

1392-453: A space-based optical mesh network that will enable seamless network management and continuity of service. The satellite has its own set of antennas to receive communication signals from Earth and to transmit signals to their target location. These antennas and transponders are part of the satellite's "payload", which is designed to receive and transmit signals to and from various places on Earth. What enables this transmission and reception in

1479-500: A typical one-way connection latency of 500 to 700 ms from the user to the ISP, or about 1,000 to 1,400 ms latency for the total round-trip time (RTT) back to the user. This is more than most dial-up users experience at typically 150–200 ms total latency, and much higher than the typical 15 to 40 ms latency experienced by users of other high-speed Internet services, such as cable or VDSL . For geostationary satellites, there

1566-418: A vast coverage area. Satmed provides the satellite connectivity and integrates a wide range of capabilities in a single platform, including access and storage of patient e-records, medical imaging, virtual consultation, e-learning, remote monitoring and e-health management and video conferencing..The cloud-based system reduces the need for expensive on-the-ground ICT resources and their maintenance. Initially in

1653-470: Is a geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth's equator (0° latitude), with a period equal to the Earth's rotational period and an orbital eccentricity of approximately zero (i.e. a "circular orbit"). An object in a geostationary orbit appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to ground observers. Launchers often place communications satellites and weather satellites in geostationary orbits, so that

1740-450: Is emerging that will allow a solid state device (flat panel) to steer an antenna electronically without moving parts. Initially, stabilized satellite antennas were used on ships for reception of television signals. One of the first companies to manufacture stabilized VSAT antennas was SeaTel of Concord , California , which launched its first stabilized antenna in 1978. SeaTel dominates the supply of two-way VSAT stabilised antenna systems to

1827-548: Is in the process of developing its own, state-owned, satellite internet constellation , run by Chinasat . India’s main offerings in the space is Oneweb and JioSpaceFiber . And is as of 2023, entertaining licenses for Starlink and Project Kuiper. Satellite Internet generally relies on three primary components: a satellite – historically in geostationary orbit (or GEO) but now increasingly in Low Earth orbit (LEO) or Medium Earth orbit MEO)  –

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1914-449: Is lost can be reduced by increasing the size of the satellite communication dish so as to gather more of the satellite signal on the downlink and also to provide a stronger signal on the uplink. In other words, increasing antenna gain through the use of a larger parabolic reflector is one way of increasing the overall channel gain and, consequently, the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, which allows for greater signal loss due to rain fade without

2001-471: Is no way to eliminate latency, but the problem can be somewhat mitigated in Internet communications with TCP acceleration features that shorten the apparent round trip time (RTT) per packet by splitting ("spoofing") the feedback loop between the sender and the receiver. Certain acceleration features are often present in recent technology developments embedded in satellite Internet equipment. Latency also impacts

2088-415: Is the delay between requesting data and the receipt of a response, or in the case of one-way communication, between the actual moment of a signal's broadcast and the time it is received at its destination. A radio signal takes about 120 milliseconds to reach a geostationary satellite and then 120 milliseconds to reach the ground station, so nearly 1/4 of a second overall. Typically, during perfect conditions,

2175-447: Is then routed to a specific ground location through a channel known as a carrier. Beside the payload, the other main component of a communications satellite is called the bus, which comprises all equipment required to move the satellite into position, supply power, regulate equipment temperatures, provide health and tracking information, and perform numerous other operational tasks. Along with dramatic advances in satellite technology over

2262-399: Is typically provided to individual users through geostationary satellites that can offer relatively high data speeds, with newer satellites using the K u band to achieve downstream data speeds up to 506  Mbit/s . In addition, new satellite internet constellations are being developed in low-earth orbit to enable low-latency internet access from space. Following the launch of

2349-431: Is usually undertaken in one of three ways, using: In May 2022, Kazakhstani mobile network operator, Kcell , and satellite owner and operator, SES used SES's O3b MEO satellite constellation to demonstrate that MEO satellites could be used to provide high-speed mobile internet to remote regions of Kazakhstan for reliable video calling, conferencing and streaming, and web browsing, with a latency five times lower than on

2436-570: The Buda Community Healthcare Centre on the island of Mindanao in The Philippines is the only medical point of contact for more than 200,000 people living in remote villages within 100 km of the centre. Satmed has been deployed at the centre as a mobile health information management system to collect and analyse patient data. The initial focus is on using Satmed to support rolling clinics - medical teams visit local villages on

2523-682: The price–performance ratio of fixed satellite service (FSS) over the past five years. New VSAT systems are coming online using K a band technology that promise higher data rates for lower costs. FSS systems currently in orbit have a huge capacity with a relatively low price structure. FSS systems provide various applications for subscribers, including: telephony , fax , television , high-speed data communication services, Internet access, satellite news gathering (SNG), Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) and others. These systems provide high-quality service because they create efficient communication systems for both residential and business users. All

2610-524: The science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in a paper in Wireless World in 1945. The first satellite to successfully reach geostationary orbit was Syncom3 , built by Hughes Aircraft for NASA and launched on August 19, 1963. Succeeding generations of communications satellites featuring larger capacities and improved performance characteristics were adopted for use in television delivery, military applications and telecommunications purposes. Following

2697-421: The 'Char dwellers' on sediment islands in the rivers of Bangladesh. Three ships belonging to NGO, Friendship were equipped – Lifebuoy Friendship Hospital, Emirates Friendship Hospital, and Rongdhonu Friendship Hospital (formerly Rainbow Warrior II ). Connectivity by satellite (otherwise unavailable to the islands) enables staff to share medical records across the three hospital ships, to synchronise information at

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2784-417: The Earth's rotational period, making it appear to hover over a fixed point on the Earth's equator . Arthur C. Clarke's October 1945 Wireless World article (called "Extra-Terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give World-wide Radio Coverage?") discussed the necessary orbital characteristics for a geostationary orbit and the frequencies and power needed for communication. Live satellite communication

2871-506: The FCC issued a call for more K a -band satellite applications, attracting applications from 15 companies. Among those were EchoStar , Lockheed Martin , GE-Americom , Motorola and KaStar Satellite, which later became WildBlue . Among prominent aspirants in the early-stage satellite Internet sector was Teledesic , an ambitious and ultimately failed project funded in part by Microsoft that ended up costing more than $ 9 billion. Teledesic's idea

2958-577: The Government of Luxembourg made access to the Satmed platform available free of charge for healthcare professionals of selected health organisations, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic . Existing Satmed projects in Sierra Leone and Bangladesh have proved instrumental in detection and treatment of COVID-19 in geographically isolated regions of those countries. In March 2021, the Luxembourg government further extended

3045-436: The K a band (19/29 GHz) can use special techniques such as large rain margins , adaptive uplink power control and reduced bit rates during precipitation. Rain margins are the extra communication link requirements needed to account for signal degradations due to moisture and precipitation, and are of acute importance on all systems operating at frequencies over 10 GHz. The amount of time during which service

3132-508: The Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, and five Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) – Archemed, Fondation Follereau, Friendship, German Doctors and Médecins Sans Frontières . The European ESTHER alliance, a Europe-wide network of Governments for the networking of health professionals and associations in their fight against AIDS, is also involved in the project through its German branch. In September, SES announced that it had become

3219-510: The Philippines, and Sierra Leone. The pilot phase was funded by the Luxembourg government and the medical arm of Emergency.lu , the disaster recovery communications platform created to improve the rapid response capabilities of rescue teams in areas hit by severe natural or human-made catastrophes, itself a public-private partnership between Luxembourg's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SES, HITEC Luxembourg S.A. and Luxembourg Air Ambulance S.A., with

3306-452: The S/N ratio dropping below its minimum threshold for successful communication. Modern consumer-grade dish antennas tend to be fairly small, which reduces the rain margin or increases the required satellite downlink power and cost. However, it is often more economical to build a more expensive satellite and smaller, less expensive consumer antennas than to increase the consumer antenna size to reduce

3393-673: The Satmed healthcare system won the 'Changing Lives' category in the VSAT Stellar Awards, presented as part of the VSAT Global conference in London. In April 2017, the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs extended the contract with SES to maintain, support, and continue to develop the Satmed platform until 2020, extending the provision of satellite connectivity over Africa, the Philippines and Bangladesh. In April 2020,

3480-425: The aircraft, resulting in a greatly reduced round-trip signal latency of only 0.25 milliseconds. The planes could potentially run for long periods without refueling. Several such schemes involving various types of aircraft have been proposed in the past. Satellite communications are affected by moisture and various forms of precipitation (such as rain or snow) in the signal path between end users or ground stations and

3567-528: The care of children with surgically correctable conditions, and has 70 staff each year providing nearly 2,000 consultations (at the hospital and in mobile clinics) and around 700 surgeries, with patients from throughout Niger and neighbouring West African countries such as Mali, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso. The biggest challenge facing CURE in Niger is the lack of infrastructure, and without reliable electricity, internet connection and water, access to healthcare throughout

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3654-449: The community to stay in contact with the medical staff, to gather data about the disease spread, to implement prevention measures, and to provide e-learning teaching sessions and remote consultancy. Satellite Internet access Satellite Internet access is Internet access provided through communication satellites ; if it can sustain high speeds , it is termed satellite broadband . Modern consumer grade satellite Internet service

3741-409: The connection to a customer, and tracking by the ground stations. MEO satellites require higher power transmissions than LEO to achieve the same signal strength at the ground station but their higher altitude also provides less orbital overcrowding, and their slower orbit speed reduces both Doppler shift and the size and complexity of the constellation required. Tracking of the moving satellites

3828-618: The contract with SES to provide the Satmed satellite platform to 2024, with a €6.5 billion budget and plans for new functionalities, deployments and partnerships with both more NGOs and supranational organisations to provide regional or cross-country support. In June 2022, Satmed was awarded the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) prize for International and Regional Cooperation. In March 2016, Satmed deployed VSATs on floating hospital ships to provide healthcare services to

3915-530: The country remains very limited. The Satmed system provides communication between CURE Niger staff and national and international doctors to receive medical counselling, remote diagnosis of patients by experts across the World, online training for doctors and nurses to improve their knowledge, and easy access to necessary information via the internet, enhancing the healthcare provided to rural and remote regions in Niger. Opened in 2005, in conjunction with German Doctors ,

4002-585: The early 1980s. Equatorial later developed a C band (4/6 GHz) two-way system using 1 m x 0.5 m antennas and sold about 10,000 units in 1984–85. In the early 1980s, LINKABIT (the predecessor to Qualcomm and ViaSat) developed the world's first Ku-band (12–14 GHz) VSAT for Schlumberger to provide network connectivity for oil field drilling and exploration units. LINKABIT which had become part of M/A-COM went on to develop K u band VSATs for enterprise customers such as Walmart , Holiday Inn , Chrysler , and General Motors . These enterprise terminals made up

4089-405: The entire system. Working in concert with a broadband gateway, the satellite operates a Star network topology where all network communication passes through the network's hub processor, which is at the centre of the star. With this configuration, the number of ground stations that can be connected to the hub is virtually limitless. Marketed as the centre of the new broadband satellite networks are

4176-538: The entry-level cost for getting maritime VSAT installed, which turned out to be of key importance to small to mid-sized fleets, and thus to the market acceptance of VSAT. According to the Maritime VSAT report issued by the Comsys Group, the market for stabilised maritime VSAT services (not including oil and gas rigs) reached more than $ 400 million in 2007. In 2010, COMSYS released its "2nd Maritime VSAT Report", where

4263-599: The existing platform based on geostationary orbit satellites. A proposed alternative to relay satellites is a special-purpose high altitude platform stations aircraft, which would fly along a circular path above a fixed ground location, operating under autonomous computer control at a height of approximately 20,000 meters. For example, the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Vulture project envisaged an ultralight aircraft capable of station-keeping over

4350-634: The first four satellites of the O3b constellation were launched into medium Earth orbit (MEO) to provide internet access to the "other three billion" people without stable internet access at that time. Over the next six years, 16 further satellites joined the constellation, now owned and operated by SES . Since 2014, a rising number of companies announced working on internet access using satellite constellations in low Earth orbit . SpaceX , OneWeb and Amazon all planned to launch more than 1000 satellites each. OneWeb alone raised $ 1.7 billion by February 2017 for

4437-704: The first satellite, Sputnik 1 , by the Soviet Union in October 1957, the US successfully launched the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958. The first commercial communications satellite was Telstar 1 , built by Bell Labs and launched in July 1962. The idea of a geosynchronous satellite —one that could orbit the Earth above the equator and remain fixed by following the Earth's rotation—was first proposed by Herman Potočnik in 1928 and popularised by

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4524-413: The gateway antenna can stay pointed at a fixed position. For the customer-provided equipment (i.e. PC and router) to access the broadband satellite network, the customer must have additional physical components installed: At the far end of the outdoor unit is typically a small (2–3-foot, 60 to 90 cm diameter), reflective dish-type radio antenna. The VSAT antenna must also have an unobstructed view of

4611-406: The gateway receives radio wave signals from the satellite on the last leg of the return or upstream payload, carrying the request originating from the end-user's site. The satellite modem at the gateway location demodulates the incoming signal from the outdoor antenna into IP packets and sends the packets to the local network. Access server/gateways manage traffic transported to/from the Internet. Once

4698-474: The ground. The absolute minimum total amount of delay varies, due to the satellite staying in one place in the sky, while ground-based users can be directly below (with a roundtrip latency of 239.6 ms), or far to the side of the planet near the horizon (with a roundtrip latency of 279.0 ms). For an Internet packet, that delay is doubled before a reply is received. That is the theoretical minimum. Factoring in other normal delays from network sources gives

4785-482: The ground. For example: Unlike geostationary satellites, LEO and MEO satellites do not stay in a fixed position in the sky and from a lower altitude they can "see" a smaller area of the Earth , and so continuous widespread access requires a constellation of many satellites (low-Earth orbits needing more satellites than medium-Earth orbits) with complex constellation management to switch data transfer between satellites and keep

4872-634: The headquarters in Dhaka, and to use Satmed's e-learning tools in the Friendship teaching centre. Deployed in June 2015, the Satmed platform at Maternité Hospital built in by Fondation Follereau Luxembourg (FFL) in the village of Ahozonnoude, Benin provides communications between the maternity hospital in Ahozonnoude, the hospital in capital Cotonou and a third hospital unit in Allada. For remote consultation and monitoring -

4959-644: The highest capacity satellite ever, ViaSat-1, in 2011 to expand the WildBlue base under its Exede brand. In 2007, Hughes Communications started deploying K a band VSAT sites for consumers under its HughesNet brand on the Spaceway 3 satellite and later in 2012 on its EchoStar XVII/Jupiter 1 satellite. By September 2014, Hughes became the first Satellite Internet Provider to surpass one million active terminals. Most VSAT networks are configured in one of these topologies : Advances in technology have dramatically improved

5046-399: The initial request has been processed by the gateway's servers, sent to and returned from the Internet, the requested information is sent back as a forward or downstream payload to the end-user via the satellite, which directs the signal to the subscriber terminal. Each Gateway provides the connection to the Internet backbone for the gateway beam(s) it serves. The system of gateways comprising

5133-545: The initiation of secure Internet connections such as SSL which require the exchange of numerous pieces of data between web server and web client. Although these pieces of data are small, the multiple round trips involved in the handshake produce long delays compared to other forms of Internet connectivity, as documented by Stephen T. Cobb in a 2011 report published by the Rural Mobile and Broadband Alliance. This annoyance extends to entering and editing data using some Software as

5220-616: The invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web, geostationary satellites attracted interest as a potential means of providing Internet access. A significant enabler of satellite-delivered Internet has been the opening up of the K a band for satellites. In December 1993, Hughes Aircraft Co. filed with the Federal Communications Commission for a license to launch the first K a -band satellite, Spaceway . In 1995,

5307-422: The likes of first-person shooters or racing simulators while many MMOGs can operate well over satellite Internet ), but IPTV is typically a simplex operation (one-way transmission) and latency is not a critical factor for video transmission. The effects of this delay may be mitigated using data compression, TCP-acceleration, and HTTP pre-fetching. A geostationary orbit (or geostationary Earth orbit/GEO)

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5394-515: The marine industry with almost 72% of the market in 2007 compared to Orbit's 17.6%. Initially, maritime VSAT was using single channel per carrier technology, which suited large-volume users like oil drilling rigs and oil platforms and large fleets of ships from one shipowner sailing within one or few satellite footprints . This changed when the company iDirect launched its IP-based time-division multiple access technology that dynamically allocated bandwidth to each ship for shared bandwidth, lowering

5481-687: The market estimate had increased to $ 590 million in 2009 with predictions for 2010 at $ 850 million. The estimated size of the market in terms of vessels eligible to get VSAT was in this report set to in excess of 42,000 with just over 34,000 to go. The major companies market share in terms of number of vessels in service were in 2009 (2007 in parentheses) according to these reports: Vizada: 17.6% (26.0%), Ship Equip: 11.0% (10.7%), Cap Rock 2.8% (2.9%), MTN 7.5% (6.4%), Stratos - % (3.6%), KVH 5.4% (- %) Elektrikom 4.9% (3.2%), Intelsat 3.4% (- %), Eutelsat 3.1%, NSSL 3.1%, Radio Holland 3.0%, Telemar 3.0%, DTS 2.6% and others accounted for 32.6% (27.7%). Many of

5568-448: The network in which the satellite functions as a bridge in space, connecting two communication points on the ground. The term "bent-pipe" is used to describe the shape of the data path between sending and receiving antennas, with the satellite positioned at the point of the bend. Simply put, the satellite's role in this network arrangement is to relay signals from the end user's terminal to the ISP's gateways, and back again without processing

5655-579: The next generation of O3b satellites and service, named O3b mPOWER . The constellation of 11 MEO satellites will deliver 10 terabits of capacity globally through 30,000 spot beams for broadband internet services. The first two O3b mPOWER satellites launched in December 2022, with nine more scheduled for deployment in 2023-2024 and the initial service start expected in Q3 2023. As of 2017, airlines such as Delta and American have been introducing satellite internet as

5742-467: The only effective communication link between the three units, since the routes are often inaccessible due to flooding during the rainy season. Satmed can also deliver remote online training, enabling midwives and health workers to have their performance monitored and evaluated to improve healthcare standards. FFL intends to expand the platform to other health centres in the region to create a network for sharing medical information and expertise. In June 2016,

5829-447: The outdoor parts on the dish are collectively called the ODU (Outdoor Unit), i.e., OMT to split signal between BUC and LNB. The IDU is effectively a modem, usually with Ethernet port and 2 x F-connectors for the coax to BUC (Transmit) and from LNB (Receive). The Astra2Connect has an all-in-one OMT/BUC/LNA that looks like a Quad LNB in shape and size which mounts on a regular TV satellite mount. As

5916-647: The outside world is via mobile phones. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, Satmed, in conjunction with German Doctors brought internet access to the Outpatient Clinic of Serabu Hospital in Bo District in Sierra Leone. The hospital provides health services to six chiefdoms with an estimated population of 60,000-70,000 and the clinic sees approximately 100 patients per day but is geographically isolated with no access to higher level secondary care. Satmed enabled

6003-451: The past decade, ground equipment has similarly evolved, benefiting from higher levels of integration and increasing processing power, expanding both capacity and performance boundaries. The Gateway —or Gateway Earth Station (its full name)—is also referred to as a ground station, teleport or hub. The term is sometimes used to describe just the antenna dish portion, or it can refer to the complete system with all associated components. In short,

6090-418: The payload transponders is a repeater subsystem (RF (radio frequency) equipment) used to change frequencies, filter, separate, amplify and group signals before routing them to their destination address on Earth. The satellite's high-gain receiving antenna passes the transmitted data to the transponder which filters, translates and amplifies them, then redirects them to the transmitting antenna on board. The signal

6177-536: The physics involved in satellite communications account for approximately 550 milliseconds of latency round-trip time. The longer latency is the primary difference between a standard terrestrial-based network and a geostationary satellite-based network. The round-trip latency of a geostationary satellite communications network can be more than 12 times that of a terrestrial based network. Satellite latency can be detrimental to especially time-sensitive applications such as on-line gaming (although it only seriously affects

6264-457: The project, and SpaceX raised over one billion in the first half of 2019 for their service called Starlink . They expected more than $ 30 billion in revenue by 2025 from its satellite constellation. Starlink, as of February 2024, has 5,402 operational satellites in orbit. Many planned constellations employ laser communication for inter-satellite links to effectively create a space-based internet backbone . In September 2017, SES announced

6351-630: The provision of satellite Internet access to remote locations, VoIP or video). VSATs are also used for transportable, on-the-move (utilising phased array antennas) or mobile maritime communications. The concept of the geostationary orbit was originated by Russian theorist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky , who wrote articles on space travel around the beginning of the 20th century. In the 1920s, Hermann Oberth and Herman Potocnik , also known as Herman Noordung, described an orbit at an altitude of 35,900 kilometres (22,300 miles) whose period exactly matched

6438-462: The satellite antennas that communicate with them do not have to move to track them, but can point permanently at the position in the sky where the satellites stay. Due to the constant 0° latitude and circularity of geostationary orbits, satellites in GEO differ in location by longitude only. Compared to ground-based communication, all geostationary satellite communications experience higher latency due to

6525-413: The satellite being utilized. This interference with the signal is known as rain fade . The effects are less pronounced on the lower frequency 'L' and 'C' bands but can become quite severe on the higher frequency 'Ku' and 'Ka' band. For satellite Internet services in tropical areas with heavy rain, use of the C band (4/6 GHz) with a circular polarisation satellite is popular. Satellite communications on

6612-703: The satellite cost. VSAT A very-small-aperture terminal ( VSAT ) is a two-way satellite ground station with a dish antenna that is smaller than 3.8 meters. The majority of VSAT antennas range from 75 cm to 1.2 m. Bit rates , in most cases, range from 4 kbit/s to 16 Mbit/s. VSATs access satellites in geosynchronous orbit or geostationary orbit to relay data from small remote Earth stations (terminals) to other terminals (in mesh topology ) or master Earth station "hubs" (in star topology ). VSATs are used to transmit narrowband data (e.g., point-of-sale transactions using credit cards, polling or RFID data, or SCADA ), or broadband data (for

6699-420: The satellite ground system provides all network services for satellite and corresponding terrestrial connectivity. Each gateway provides a multiservice access network for subscriber terminal connections to the Internet. As the continental United States is north of the equator, all gateway and subscriber dish antenna must have an unobstructed view of the southern sky. Because of the satellite's geostationary orbit,

6786-492: The sending device (computer, router, etc.) it receives an input bitstream and converts or modulates it into radio waves, reversing that order for incoming transmissions, which is called demodulation . It provides two types of connectivity: Consumer grade satellite modems typically employ either the DOCSIS or WiMAX telecommunication standard to communicate with the assigned gateway. Latency (commonly referred to as "ping time")

6873-521: The signal at the satellite. The satellite receives, amplifies, and redirects a carrier on a specific radio frequency through a signal path called a transponder. Some satellite constellations in LEO such as Starlink and the proposed Telesat constellation will employ laser communication equipment for high-throughput optical inter-satellite links. The interconnected satellites allow for direct routing of user data from satellite to satellite and effectively create

6960-424: The signal having to travel 35,786 km (22,236 mi) to a satellite in geostationary orbit and back to Earth again. Even at the speed of light (about 300,000 km/s or 186,000 miles per second), this delay can appear significant. If all other signaling delays could be eliminated, it still takes a radio signal about 250 milliseconds (ms), or about a quarter of a second, to travel to the satellite and back to

7047-418: The sky to allow for proper line-of-sight (L-O-S) to the satellite. There are four physical characteristic settings used to ensure that the antenna is configured correctly at the satellite, which are: azimuth , elevation, polarization , and skew . The combination of these settings gives the outdoor unit a L-O-S to the chosen satellite and makes data transmission possible. These parameters are generally set at

7134-504: The subscriber-side terminal, and gateway spot beams, which transmit to/from a service provider ground station. Note that moving off the tight footprint of a spotbeam can degrade performance significantly. Also, spotbeams can make the use of other significant new technologies impossible, including 'Carrier in Carrier ' modulation. In conjunction with the satellite's spot-beam technology, a bent-pipe architecture has traditionally been employed in

7221-493: The time the equipment is installed, along with a beam assignment (K a -band only); these steps must all be taken prior to the actual activation of service. Transmit and receive components are typically mounted at the focal point of the antenna which receives/sends data from/to the satellite. The main parts are: The satellite modem serves as an interface between the outdoor unit and customer-provided equipment (i.e. PC, router) and controls satellite transmission and reception. From

7308-486: The vast majority of sites for the next 20 years for two-way data or telephony applications. A large VSAT network, with more than 12,000 sites, was deployed by Spacenet and MCI for the U.S. Postal Service in the 1980s. As of 2015 , the largest VSAT Ku-band network containing over 100,000 VSATs was deployed by and is operated by Hughes Communications for lottery applications. In 2005, WildBlue (now ViaSat) started deploying VSAT networks deploying Ka-band. ViaSat launched

7395-605: Was developed in the 1960s by NASA , which launched Syncom 1–3 satellites. Syncom 3 transmitted live coverage of the 1964 Olympics in Japan to viewers in the United States and Europe . On April 6, 1965, the first commercial satellite was launched into space, Intelsat I , nicknamed Early Bird. The first commercial VSATs were C band (6 GHz) receive-only systems by Equatorial Communications using spread spectrum technology. More than 30,000 60 cm antenna systems were sold in

7482-691: Was launched in September 2003. In 2004, with the launch of Anik F2 , the first high-throughput satellite , a class of next-generation satellites providing improved capacity and bandwidth became operational. More recently, high throughput satellites such as ViaSat's ViaSat-1 satellite in 2011 and HughesNet's Jupiter in 2012 have achieved further improvements, elevating downstream data rates from 1 to 3 Mbit/s up to 12 to 15 Mbit/s and beyond. Internet access services tied to these satellites are targeted largely to rural residents as an alternative to Internet service via dial-up, ADSL or classic FSSes . In 2013,

7569-510: Was to create a satellite Internet constellation of hundreds of low-orbiting satellites in the K a -band frequency, providing inexpensive Internet access with download speeds of up to 720 Mbit/s. However, the project was abandoned in 2003. Teledesic's failure, coupled with the bankruptcy filings of the satellite communications providers Iridium Communications Inc. and Globalstar , dampened marketplace enthusiasm for satellite Internet development. The first Internet-ready satellite for consumers

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