Network evolution for mobile satellite services

Abstract

A few years ago there was just one mobile satellite communications system: Inmarsat. Today there are half a dozen such systems in operation and plans for a new one are announced almost every month. Most of the interest in such systems has centred around their space segments, often with multi-billion dollar contracts for increasingly powerful and sophisticated satellites. Yet the success or failure of mobile satellite communications services depends as much upon the ground network as upon the satellites. This area has generally been much underrated. Such attention as it receives is often associated more with the physical infrastructure of ground earth stations than with the support of specific user applications and is often oriented more towards engineering aspects of service delivery than towards the overall, end-to-end delivery of the services and applications that the customer requires. As a result, the successful operators are likely to be those who have given due attention to differentiating their systems through a high quality ground network for end-to-end service delivery.