While the present broadband market in India has yet to fulfill the promise it holds, there is definitely a vast potential and a high possibility that the segment would really take off.

With huge amount of investments in the fiber backbone networks, from big players like BSNL, Reliance, VSNL, Railways, Bharti etc., the basic infrastructure to service the broadband market, whenever it materializes, seems already in place and is growing. The concern areas however are the last mile delivery of such services, the packaging of services and the consistency in quality of such services along with the price points at which such access is provided.

The vital ingredients for providing broadband services have now been more or less defined. Users today, demand one or more of the following:

n High data rates not only for downloads but also for their transmit paths

n Consistently high data rates irrespective of how the service provider manages his bandwidth allocations across his customer base

n An ‘always-on’ connection, free from dialing hassles

n And all these at affordable prices—both from upfront capital expenditure and the recurring perspective.

Other than the many options that have been increasingly deployed for such broadband services like DSL, cable modems, wireless solutions like Wi-Fi and shared radio links, there is the satellite option, that is really making huge inroads in this market the world over.

Traditionally, thought to be a solution for infrastructure-building, thin/medium route traffic and for connecting geographically dispersed locations, satellite now is emerging as a substitute to the above options for broadband delivery. Across the Asia-Pacific region, enterprise broadband services delivery through satellite is the fastest growing market amongst all the satellite based services, with countries like China leading the way.

The satellite-based Star networking market, so far most popular in North America, has arrived here and could rapidly increase the satellite share in the overall market. Star Broadband products today offer a high 2 Mbps return channel data rate on technologies like MF-TDMA.

Such technologies provide the platform for service providers like SpeedCast and Tatanet in India for broadband services. From their hubs in Mumbai and Hong Kong respectively, Tatanet and SpeedCast, provide an unprecedented offering of services by satellite to their customers, based on the latest technology that can sustain video conferencing or video and VoIP.

The broadband market growth is largely dependent on volumes driven by innovative technologies and a dramatic reduction in prices that make satellite an option for the mass markets

More and more advanced broadband applications have now become a reality—VoIP services provided by BT in Nigeria, telemedicine as implemented in China, distance education for more than 3500 schools all across Mexico in a government sponsored project etc.

These present-day broadband terminals also offer very high scalability starting from the lowest end of applications—the narrow-band point-of-sale kind of applications—going right up to the truly broadband streaming-video kind of applications.

Nevertheless, it is the present cost of terminals and also the space segment prices in many cases that prohibit a rapid growth in these broadband markets. The growth in terminal volumes is the key to reducing the cost of services to such enterprise markets.

The same is even more critical to consumer markets. Open standards are typically seen as the path to such high-volume, low-cost production and increased market size. The satcom markets, so far driven by a few players, have now entered this phase wherein standards are emerging and customers are gradually demanding open solutions. There are presently two major trends worldwide in satcom—the DVB-RCS standards for return channel via satellite, and the DOCSIS cable-modem standards over satellite.

DOCSIS: New World Standard?
DOCSIS or data over cable service interface specification started nearly seven years ago, is a standard for transporting data over cable modems, which is by far the leading broadband choice for consumers especially in North America. Today, DOCSIS has more than 10 million subscribers worldwide. This proven technology has been adapted to provide similar services on satellite now under the DOCSIS-S version, and has been already deployed by WildBlue in North America.

The development of DOCSIS for satellite began in the late 1990s with WildBlue Communications’ plan to bring broadband to homes in North America. It quickly became obvious that modifying traditional VSAT technology was going to leave monthly service costs too high, never reaching the $40 to $50 per month benchmark already set by alternatives such as cable and DSL. This led WildBlue to consider cutting the costs of bringing satellite-based broadband to the home by adapting the cable modem DOCSIS chips, back office systems and tested technology.

Beginning with a contract for WildBlue, DOCSIS-S came into being—a version modified for the physical attributes of satellite transmission. With the existing DOCSIS cable-modems being built around the third and fourth generation components, the DOCSIS-S has a headstart over other standards, in lowering the cost of consumer terminals, enabling easy self-installation for customers, and providing mature back office, billing and network control software to network providers. Pricing for such complete terminals are projected at around $500, depending on volumes and demand worldwide.

Another significant advantage of DOCSIS-S is that it would offer lower satellite bandwidth usage, which is usually the major cost in any network. Advanced modulation and turbo codes are combined with powerful, dynamic fade mitigation techniques to offer over 2.25 bps/Hz on the forward channel, which would result in a 100–150 percent higher capacity per transponder, compared to competing VSAT technologies.

As already mentioned, the upfront cost of the terminals is not the only cost that is going to spur the growth of this market; it is rather the recurring space segment cost, that of using the terminals that is more critical for this market. To take advantage of DOCSIS-S, it is therefore the newer satellite technologies like the use of spot-beams, Ka-band frequency use or on-board processing that would define the success of these markets. For example, spot-beams would allow focused footprints with very high power over a small region, say for every state in India. Moreover, spot-beams would also be adjustable so that they could be oriented to address specific regions. They would take advantage of frequency re-use like in GSM, thereby allowing more efficient usage of the spectrum.

While the DOCSIS-S terminals were initially planned to be launched on these newer Ka-band satellites, considering the time-to-market such services, these service have already been rolled-out on Ku-band satellites.

Already two of the world’s leading satellite operator/service provider companies have put their money behind it. While Intelsat has expressed great faith in the technology, evidenced by its new 30 percent ownership of WildBlue, Eutelsat is conducting trials of a DOCSIS-based system, with an eye towards rolling out consumer services sometime this year. Although both these players see the technology as a potential to create a hot market for consumer satellite broadband, currently it is still the enterprise market leading the way in emand.

IntelSat has further announced along with Orbit Data Systems Limited (ODSL), a network for a two-way, satellite-based broadband Internet access service to be available directly to consumers and small office/home office users in West Asia based on these standards. In a multi-year agreement, Intelsat will provide the integrated, end-to-end network connectivity, while ODSL will be responsible for sales, marketing and retail distribution of the service in the West Asian region, targeting more than 18,000 terminals in the first two years.

With the new Ka-band satellites with high-powered spot-beams and frequency re-use techniques, the efficiencies and price structure of DOCSIS-S would become even more attractive.

DVB-RCS: The Other Forerunner
Of course, DOCSIS-S still faces major competition from DVB-RCS (digital video broadcast-return channel satellite). This standard is being backed by the well-entrenched DVB Project, established in 1992 with more than 300 members.

DVB-RCS incorporates some of the latest technologies like turbo coding, MF-TDMA, MPEG and ATM encapsulation standards and is emerging a strong standard on the terminal-satellite air interface.

The key to DVB-RCS success would be inter-operability, defined as terminals from X-vendor to work on hub from Y-Vendor and vice versa. This is what would ultimately drive the prices down for the end-users. It is this inter-operability and other issues like certification, that need to be resolved fast so as to pass on the benefits of the technology to the end users. The initial feeling in the market is that due to these very reasons RCS terminals are slightly high-priced with tags of about  $2500–$3000.

The universal observation therefore is that RCS would only be able to address the enterprise markets and not go right up to the more voluminous consumer or SOHO markets. But DVB-RCS is definitely the focus of a lot of research and development and that could provide it a competitive position soon, especially for enterprise networking.

Again it is giants like EutelSat that are driving the use of this technology, along with many big players like Alcatel jumping on the RCS band-wagon, as also new satellite ground-segment players like Nera, Newtec, EMS etc.

No Clear Winner
As it stands today, DOCSIS-S, with all its roll-outs, has a slight lead over DVB-RCS, which is still in the process of certifying systems. But DVB-RCS is not far behind and would make a very strong pitch the day it achieves inter-operability.

Eventually, with or without the standards, it is the performance of a product offering and at the right price-points, which counts, and that is what would come out tops. Also it is not by refurbishing old products or by cost-cutting that the broadband satellite market is going to expand. The broadband market growth is largely dependent on volumes driven by innovative technologies and dramatic reduction in prices so as to make satellite an option for the mass-markets rather than the class-markets only.

Ultimately, as the market grows beyond the critical rollout numbers, there may be no distinction between enterprise and consumer technologies. Already, the distinction between the markets is blurring with a growing number of in-home offices that cross over from business to home use during the course of a day. It is only time, that will uncover the future of satellite broadband technologies and standards that would finally drive the growth of markets through the services they can offer.

Gaurav Kharod marketing manager (India and SE Asia), ViaSat