SES exec envisions expanded satellite role in critical communications

Ever-evolving satellite companies are providing public-safety and critical-infrastructure entities around the world with a wide variety of robust connectivity options that are designed to support communications in even the most difficult environments, according to an executive for SES Networks.

Sergy Mummert, senior vice president for global cloud and strategic partnerships for SES Networks—an operator of medium-earth-orbit (MEO) and geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) satellite constellations—said he has seen a significant expansion of the use cases for the company’s services.

“We operate GEO satellites for our legacy video-distribution business, as well as high-throughput satellites that principally serve the aeronautical market,” Mummert said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Our MEO system really is a data-communications system trunking platform. The initial clients that we received on that system were kind of island nations that had no fiber to them. We helped them develop their digital infrastructure that then eventually justified—based on cash flow—to actually pull fiber to their islands.”

But satellite connectivity from SES and other providers increasingly is being used to provide vital backhaul that is designed to support critical communications—and creating significant new opportunities for the satellite industry, according to Mummert.

“I think it’s a unique time, where the idea of critical infrastructure—where space is a part of it—is getting more and more acknowledged,” he said. “If we create barriers and don’t enable it, it’s our fault. We really need to make easier for people to integrate us amongst their terrestrial networks.”

Mummert said SES recently partnered with Microsoft and ORAN provide Pegatron to develop a resilient private 5G system for the government and fire department in Taiwan (see network diagram above), which is subject to natural hazards like typhoons, monsoons, earthquakes, landslides and flooding, according to an SES blog about the project.

The goal there was quick-deployed infrastructure for major events, so they wanted to put communications systems on their vehicles,” Mummert said. “They could actually deploy a 5G bubble, allow all of the devices for the first responders to connect into this 5G bubble securely, and then backhaul over satellite.

“The principal application that I think the fire department is going to be using is a version of [Microsoft] Teams. It’s multi-device—all of these different type of input devices can kind of be aggregated using a collaborative tool like Teams and then have secure communications back to their headquarters.”

In addition, the SES satellite connectivity is designed to let Taiwanese government officials access key information stored in cloud via the Microsoft Azure data center in Sydney, Australia, if local data centers are unavailable.

Although still in the proof-of-concept phase, this private 5G project is “getting a lot of traction in Taiwan from first responders,” Mummert said.

SES also teamed with Microsoft and Nokia to support an asset-management application in Australia, and the company provided some connectivity to support response efforts in the wake of Hurricane Ian, Mummert said.

“I think there are going to be more and more cases of wireless solutions being connected to backhaul, like we’re doing in Taiwan,” Mummert said. “One of the key things from an SES perspective was to make sure that our system was 5G compatible. What I mean by that is that 5G looks at having network slices and things that let you prioritize traffic and applications. Another provider can use our system as part of their chain, if they’re all consistent.

“We’re one of the few satellite operators that didn’t come up with a proprietary stack and say, ‘You can only use this.’ The fact that we’re trying to make sure that we’re enabling interoperability with 5G is a key differentiator for us.”

Currently, these efforts leverage the SES O3b MEO system, which boasts 20 satellites and is the only commercially available MEO system for RF communications, Mummert said. But SES plans to have its next-generation MEO system—O3b mPOWER—operational by the middle of next year. With the O3b mPOWER constellation, each constellation will be able to provide about 70 more data throughput than the current SES MEO system, he said.

While GEO satellites typically are about 22,000 miles from Earth, the MEO satellites for SES are about 5,000 miles away, Mummert said. Low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites can be as close as 300 miles from the earth’s surface.

Not surprisingly, the proximity of satellites to the Earth impacts the latency of satellite communications, Mummert said.

“We quote 150 milliseconds [for MEO communications],” Mummert said. “When we say that, we mean [the latency] for a round-trip ping—from the terminal through the satellite, down to the gateway and back is 150 milliseconds. GEO is closer to 600 [milliseconds]. LEOs can vary, but I think that they’re in the 50s.”

Meanwhile, satellite connectivity is very reliable. In addition to being impervious to natural and man-made disasters on Earth, LEO and MEO systems “are distributed networks, so you don’t have a single point of failure,” according to Mummert.

“If I were to lose one of my MEOs, I’ll have 11 in orbit [with the next-generation mPOWER system], I can redo the spacing, and you [a customer] wouldn’t even notice that we lost one,” he said. “The same goes for a LEO system.

Mummert said he agrees with SES CEO Steve Collar that public-safety and critical-infrastructure users are seeking multi-orbit satellite solutions that provide layers of redundant connectivity and support access to different data speeds.

“We actually are strong about the idea of multi-orbit [communications]—use the right orbit and the right solution for the right application. That’s our tone,” Mummert said. “Obviously, we don’t have a LEO system. We have integrators and partners that combine our service with LEO systems … Sometimes, you have no terrestrial option—like on a vessel—and you still want diversity, in terms of your networking.”

SES is seeing a similar push for multi-orbit solutions from government customers, according to Mummert.

“I think where we’re headed, in terms of a multi-orbit ecosystem, is that the government is really trying to drive interoperability between the systems, so that you can have an antenna system that’s not proprietary to one orbit or provider,” he said. “It totally makes sense, to avoid vendor lock.

“I think first responders and critical-infrastructure players will also start thinking the same way.”