END-TO-END PERSPECTIVES

Industry leaders answer questions on satellite’s role in the converged end-to-end network

ContentsSatellite’s role in creating a truly converged end-to-end network is an ongoing industry discussion, and one that continues to generate more conversation with the introduction of new technology innovations and the growing demands that drive them.

iDirect, Verizon, NSR, BT Global Services and Intelsat engage in a discussion on the role of satellite in the end-to-end network. Touching on the latest technologies, partnership dynamics and future trends, this group of industry leaders provides insights on all aspects of the converged end-to-end network.

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Breaking Down the Satellite Silo01

VSAT Making End-to-End a Reality

By Eric WatkoVice President, Integrated Solutions & Space SystemsiDirect

By Stuart BursonAssociate Director, Satellite Solutions GroupVerizon

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Doing Business Globally, with Agility

05By Karen Emery, Director, Product Management, Broadband ServicesIntelsat

Evolving Telco Capabilities 04By Renato GoodfellowHead of Global SatelliteBT Global Services

Future VSAT Innovation 03By Carlos PlacidoSenior AnalystNSR

The Next Stage of Innovation By Eric WatkoVice President, Integrated Solutions & Space SystemsiDirect

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“When will satellite become part of the

mainstream network o�ering?”

This is an important question that continues to garner a lot of discussion in the industry today. In many ways, you could say that the time for �nally answering such a question has never been more important as the volume of global IP services is projected to hit an accelerated level of growth over the coming years.

Looking at forecasts from Cisco, by 2020 it is expected that roughly 4 billion connected people, 20 billion connected devices and 50

billion machines will be coming onto the network. This in�ux of connections is set to generate emand for IP services unlike anything currently experienced today—with new revenue opportunity across the board.

Such revenue opportunity can only be realized if communications companies are able to provide an end-to-end communi-cation experience that reaches anywhere over any access technology.

And today, communications providers are rapidly developing strategies to ensure

Eric WatkoVice President, Integrated Solutions & Space Systems, iDirect

satellite is employed as a key asset. Many have established teams that specialize in satellite communications and can identify when a client will bene�t from the applica-tion of VSAT as part of a total solution. In support, the satellite communications industry is creating next-generation technol-ogy that not only makes it easier and more cost-e�ective to integrate that technology into the core network, but satis�es rigorous communications service cases.

Satellite communications provides the value of wide coverage, immediacy of

service, and support for mobile communications on the pause (COTP) and communications on the move (COTM). All such use cases prove valuable attributes for any global communications company looking to complete the reach of their global service portfolio.

In order to deliver most e�ectively, satellite must be seamlessly integrated into the core service portfolio.

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For Verizon, that is a question that we made sure we addressed very early on in the development of our network.

From the outset, we designed satellite to interface directly with our MPLS-based IP network. This fully owned and operated end-to-end network seamlessly integrates all access technologies to deliver a highly secure, robust private network solution.

You see, end users aren’t aware of what access technologies we integrate into our network design -- nor do they care. They just want to be assured our network delivers service wherever and whenever they desire. For Verizon, that means we work satellite into the solution to meet those end-user demands.

VSAT is seamlessly integrated into our service portfolio. While satellite is an alternate access technology, it is not located in a separate access silo. We work hard to integrate satellite into our vast array of services and iDirect is an important part of making that happen seamlessly.

To meet our customers’ expectations, we looked at our terrestrial network and matched the feature sets for our satellite services. A satellite terminal acts as just another access point to the MPLS network. It is designed to be as transparent as possible for the customer.

This enables Verizon to o�er service level agreements (SLAs) on its satellite network comparable to those it extends on its terrestrial MPLS network. In addition, the platform supports full VLAN separation, ensuring two-way data

Stuart BursonAssociate Director, Satellite Solutions Group, Verizon

encryption and enabling system features to be easily managed.

For Verizon, it is important that we’re able to show customers we’re meeting their SLAs. On our terrestrial networks, we have stan-dards on reporting. Customers with a satellite connection can visit the same portal they do for their terrestrial network

and see the satellite network information. We collect data from our satellite services and feed it into our overarching customer portal, repackaging it into a common look and feel that the customer is used to seeing.For Verizon, satellite plays a critical role in completing the enterprise solution.

“How valuable is the role of VSAT in making end-to-end global connectivity a reality?”

Stuart BursonAssociate Director of Satellite Solutions Group, Verizon

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”What does future innovation across satellite look like?“

Characterizing the current state of technology progression in satellite can often be tricky. Truth be told, satellite has been on a fruitful path of technology progression for many years.

Future VSAT Innovation

Of course, much of this stems from the overall shift to IP that satellite made many years ago. This set the stage for making satellite a powerful broadband IP technology that supports enterprise-quality applications with service reliability and quality that mirrors that of terrestrial networks.

Despite this shift, however, the high cost capacity remained a limiting factor for many years in satellite’s path of progres-sion. The introduction of High Throughput Satellites (HTS), and the emergence of new high-e�ciency LEO constellations as of late, have since change this limitation.

Given this in�ux of new capacity, you could say that satellite technology innova-tion is more important than ever. And in recent years we have seen a more concen-trated progression of innovation associat-ed with improving overall spectral e�cien-cy. We see technology platforms leverag-ing adaptive carriers with new advances in technologies like ACM, Adaptive TDMA, beam roaming and dynamic SCPC. The development of smarter network manage-ment systems and even the path towards adopting more common networking standards like DVB-S2X further this progression, all with the end goal of driv-ing better e�ciency and �exibility around this new �nite resource in the sky.

Now what comes next is even more exciting. Future technology progression within satellite is being driven by mainstream technology developments, such as cloud and virtualization. More and more terrestrial infrastructure is being developed around cloud-based technologies, with services being developed for a virtualized environment.

This is the path down which satellite is heading as well. We will begin to see more in the form of software-de�ned satellite networks and ground systems, or transitioning the functionality of network management and protocol processing out of �xed server hardware and into a virtualized environment.

Such development has ripple e�ects throughout the value chain, where services are re-engineered and relation-ships rede�ned. From software-de�ned networks to software-de�ned satellites, there will be an increasing relevance of smart software in end-to-end satellite networks. This will, in turn, foster a new interplay among satcom value chain players, possibly towards an environment with more infrastructure sharing and software-driven value creation.

Perhaps the biggest trend to watch is just how quickly satellite embraces such technologies going forward.

Carlos PlacidoSenior Analyst, NSR

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Evolving Telco Capabilities

“Which trends within telco will drive even greater need for future innovation in VSAT?”

BT Global’s communications network provides connectivity to nearly 200 countries, most of which rely on terrestrial �ber. We also serve over 37,000 sites around the globe to which �ber will not reach and this is where satellite enters the discussion.

Over recent years, BT Global Services has invested heavily in growing our VSAT infrastructure to take advantage of VSAT strengths. Satellite is a quick-to-deploy and secure solution that enables global connec-tivity, and has played a vital role in helping complete our BT Connect Global MPLS network reach.

We have installed dedicated VSAT hubs in key regions of the world, which helps us optimize communication performance, with a single BT managed solution for our customers.

In addition, we are also creating solutions that �t speci�c industry practices for customers—particularly in such markets as oil and gas, mining and manufacturing, among others. Satellite is often a more cost-e�ective backup for us to provide to sites than duplicating the terrestrial MPLS infrastructure, for example.

Most of our customers will say, "We don’t care if it’s terrestrial or satellite, as long as you can give us connectivity and it works for our applications."

We say to these customers, “We will create the connectivity you require.” We map in the cloud with our MPLS network to provide the dedicated bandwidth and deliver the customer applications.

We have, however, sometimes been con-strained by proprietary satellite protocols, which have limited what can be achieved. Ideally, our customers want full transparency,

end-to-end, so that local applications can easily map over MPLS and extend reach with satellite. The growing demand for seamless services that reach all parts of the globe is a major trend that satellite must adapt to ful�ll.

This is why we are happy to be working with iDirect and their new Layer 2 over Satellite (L2oS) feature as part of the iDirect Evolution® platform. L2oS enables us to overcome proprietary satellite protocols, allowing the satellite connection to emulate a transparent Ethernet link. This provides the freedom to pass any protocols and provide more �exibility in network management.

With this, BT Global Services is launching end-to-end Ethernet connectivity initially in Turkey, the Middle East, western Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. By connecting sites through a Layer 2 network, it simpli�es the process for our enterprise customers to make local applications available across all sites.

This is a very signi�cant step forward in continuing to innovate with satellite technology. As we build our infrastructure and technologies around cloud-based services, satellite is a key connectivity and can now better play its part.

Renato GoodfellowHead of Global Satellite, BT Global Services

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"What are the next steps in innovation designed to allow service providers to seam-lessly augment their network around the globe?"

Let’s talk about the notion of doing business globally. At the close of 2015, there were nearly 3.2 billion Internet users around the globe. That number is more than triple where it stood a decade earlier. And a good majority of these Internet users are utilizing that connection to conduct business.

It’s no surprise that over 90% of businessesin high-income countries use a broadband

connection. But where it starts to get inter-esting is the fact that 68% of businesses in low-to-mid income countries are doing the same—up from 39% just four years earlier.

In addition, the adoption of broadband is directly linked to improving economic conditions in emerging countries around the globe. However, the local terrestrial infrastructure is often insu�cient to support their growth ambitions while in other areas limitations come from network congestion. When we talk about serving emerging countries, hard-to-reach places or congested networks, we talk about the need for a scalable network backbone that can be deployed swiftly where needed.

That means the telecom industry must take the next step to seamlessly integrate terrestrial and satellite assets into a high performance ubiquitous network around the globe. The goal here is to enable enterprise networks to become more agile, to expand beyond physical constraints in a way that is pro�table and can correlate

Doing Business Globally, with Agility

expenses to immediate revenue realization.

It is precisely the strategy that Intelsat has implemented with our IntelsatOne Flex for Enterprise service o�ering. This wholesale managed service provides easy access to Intelsat’s Globalized Network, and in particular to its high-performance Intelsat EpicNG �eet, enabling accelerated deployment of Internet services in underserved or congested areas.

The service aggregates multiple redundant layers of high-speed connectivity over high demand zones with an overall global cover-age. Purchased capacity can be consumed anywhere within large service regions and can even be ported across regions for maximum �exibility. And when we say high-speed connectivity to the terminal, we are talking about carrier-grade connectivity.

The name of the game for network provid-ers is the ability to capitalize on new busi-ness opportunities and areas of growth without breaking the bank. That strategy tends to run into three hurdles:

The IntelsatOne Flex for Enterprise service has been built with the intent of tackling each hurdle head on:

With these features, we provide next-gener-ation Mbps services that help network providers be nimbler and earn extra reve-nue as they swiftly extend their network to support growth opportunities and new business applications, all of this with limited �nancial exposure.

Trying to respond to unpredictable market shifts by adjusting the network incrementally, thus missing out on revenue opportunities.

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Providing a consistent and superior user experience across the entire footprint as the reach expands with a hybrid network.

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Getting the network ready for the era of data-heavy applications without expending enormous amounts of money to do so.

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Access to mega-pools of capacity every-

where needed. This can be done with a

simple web application, whether you want to

jumpstart a service, extend your network in

hard-to-reach places or satisfy tra�c growth.

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Seamless integration with the core MPLS or

Ethernet network. This guarantees ultra-high

availability and incorporates multiple levels of

redundancies.

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Buying Mbps and terminals to bring

next generation high-speed connectivi-

ty to the network with almost no capital

outlay. By acquiring Mbps incrementally

as demand grows, this helps establish a

direct correlation between cost and

revenue pro�les. You can stack up more

tra�c on your existing equipment to

accommodate new bandwidth-hungry

applications and deploy small, cost-e�ec-

tive terminals to new sites.

3.

Karen EmeryDirector, Product Management, Broadband Services, Intelsat

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Source: WDR 2016

increasing scalability and reliability, and enabling providers with greater ability for dynamic service delivery.

For iDirect, the answer is clear: We must be able to support the service needs of the industry as a whole. We cannot simply focus on the space segment, but instead examine every aspect—from the edge of the core network, to the terminals, to the endpoint of the customer.

The reality is this: Each service provider has its own way it wishes to di�erentiate services. And as their partner iDirect must be able to o�er a range of capabilities to satisfy these di�erent approaches.

As such, we are taking a holistic approach to innovating our technology. This approach is designed with the intent of driving down IT and management costs,

Eric WatkoVice President, Integrated Solutions & Space Systems, iDirect

"What are the next steps to innovating around modern networking technology in order for satellite to continue operating right at the heart of IP networks?"

The Next Stage of Innovation

L2oS uses switching to pass Ethernet packets end-to-end over the network enabling a satellite network to behave like a mainstream access network. L2oS enables new satellite service delivery models based upon carrier-grade Ethernet and facilitates converged services. With this comes the underlying foundation to help service providers and carriers seamlessly deploy well-integrated networks and services that span from one end of a network to the other.

For more information, go to: www.iDirect.net/L2oS

To reach from end-to-end, we will continue down the path of holistic inno-vation in order to further bridge the gap between satellite and terrestrial networks.

As service providers experience greater demand to deliver global services, satellite connectivity allows them to reach beyond their traditional area of coverage. iDirect is helping to lead the way with Layer 2 over Satellite (L2oS), as part of the Evolution® platform.

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Gateway Virtualization:Maximizes processing throughput and capacity while simplifying IT infrastructure.

Dynamic Service Delivery:Ultimate �exibility through integrated management APIs and network orchestration.

RF Performance: Greater RF e�ciencies in the form of DVB-S2X with increased symbol rates and higher, more e�cient MODCODs.

Next-Generation Terminals: Higher performance, DVB-S2X remotes are future-proof for longer life through over-the-air software feature licenses, coupled with adaptable functionality to deliver specialized services at the user edge.

13861 Sunrise Valley Drive Suite 300

Herdon, VA 20171+ 1 703.647.8000+1 866.345.0983www.idirect.net