Commercial Opportunities for Broadband Maritime Satellite Communications in the Era of HTS Satellites

HAN Lei, LI Wei

Satpro M&C Tech Co., Ltd., Xi'an, 710018

Abstract: Compared with the ever-changing development and changes of land communications, the development of maritime communications lags behind slightly, particularly on the offshore platform due to the complex and changeable environment, as well as the extremely difficult construction. However, the development of High Throughput Satellite (HTS) has changed the market pattern for traditional satellite communications, and its advanced technology concept ensures the rapid growth of maritime communications business. This article mainly analyzes the demand and current status of maritime satellite communications, discusses and expounds the commercial opportunities HTS satellites will bring to the era of maritime communications satellite.

Key words: HTS, broadband maritime satellite communications, maritime business

1 INTRODUCTION

The global ocean area, which accounts for 71% of the surface area of the Earth, is rich in resources. There are various vessels and operating platforms on the ocean for fishing, ocean transportation, resource exploitation etc. With the increasing frequency of maritime activities and the rapid development of the marine economy, broadband maritime satellite communications has become an essential and important link. There are 26 satellite operators who have invested and built dozens of High Throughput Satellites (HTS) or payloads in the world. Among them, there are total of 7 HTS satellites which have been launched with three launches in the first half of 2018. HTS satellites significantly improve the capacity and reduce the unit cost of bandwidth, which has become an important development trend for satellite communications. The business opportunity of HTS satellite applications for marine use has arrived.

2 DEMAND AND PRESENT STATUS OF MARITIME SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS

At present, maritime satellite communications is mainly used in daily communications from offshore, far-sea and ocean-going ships to the coast and from ship to ship. A guarantee of reliable,accurate, timely and safe communications is needed in areas such as marine transportation, oil and gas exploration and extraction, environmental monitoring, marine fishery, mariculture and marine scientific research.

According to the statistics by July 2017, there were 79,753 international navigation ships worldwide, with 25,714 ships over 10,000 tons, 378,900 monthly active ships with AIS position and 30,600 ships over 160 m. There were 4,309 vessels of Chinese nationality conducting international navigation, with 1,345 vessels over 10,000 tons, 6,103 vessels controlled by Chinese ship owners and 2,517 vessels over 10,000 tons. With the miniaturization of satellite terminal equipment, more than 90% of ships are able to install VSAT equipment with broadband communications capability.

Looking at the current situation of global maritime satellite communications, most regions and application platforms are still at a lower level and can only meet the basic requirements of conventional communications for maritime activities. According to the area of maritime activities and the types of business, although the users can choose different communications systems, the advantages and disadvantages of various systems in performance are obvious. Without transmission distance restriction, satellite communications can realize stable oceanwide coverage, and ensure smooth broadband access, but the cost of equipment and satellite charges are too high, plus bandwidth resources are limited. Moreover, various satellite communications systems are isolated from each other and lack a unified coordination and management mechanism, so cannot guarantee reasonable and efficient cooperative operation[1].

Statistics from Euroconsult show that the growth rate of the VSAT market was 18.8% in 2017, exceeding more than 23,000 terminals. VSAT technologies have been adopted by the small and medium-sized ship market. The number of MSS terminals decreased by 0.4% in 2016, and operators are increasingly migrating from MSS to VSAT solutions. Increased passenger demand, crew and passengers interested in rich content and newly developed concepts related to intelligent shipping are major factors driving maritime operators to install the latest generation of satellite systems on their ships. The increasing number of IOT (Internet of Things) connectivity and sensor devices leading to autonomous transportation, performance monitoring, fleet management and networks security applications will drive the satellite communications capacity requirements over the next five to ten years.

Figure 1 Applications of airborne, maritime and land VSATs

3 OPPORTUNITIES FROM HTS SATELLITES

HTS satellites have main technical features including multipoint beam, frequency multiplexing and high beam gain. Compared with traditional communications satellites, HTS satellites have advantages in capacity, unit bandwidth cost, and the possibility of competing with ground networks.

Global HTS satellites have entered a period of rapid development. According to the statistics of Euroconsult, the total investment commitment of 30 satellite operators in HTS satellite systems has reached nearly 19 billion US dollars. HTS satellites are expected to grow rapidly in number, capacity, revenue and demand. At present, the commercialization of HTS satellites enjoys a broad prospect, but the geographical development is uneven. The focus of the market is in Europe and the United States, and the Asia-pacific market has the greatest development potential.

With the significant increase of bandwidth, the usage of bandwidth will also increase significantly. From the perspective of the development of terrestrial wireless resources, the demand for bandwidth is endless, followed by rapidly development of broadband value-added services. HTS satellites have the unique advantage in ocean transportation (real-time monitoring, remote maintenance, fleet management, crew internet access), cruise yacht (crew and tourists broadband access to the internet), fishing (business security, daily communications,wisdom fishery), offshore oil drilling (big data applications, production management and control) etc.

4 THE CURRENT PROBLEMS OF HTS SATELLITES

The application of low-orbit satellites and HTS satellites in the ocean will form a complementary and competitive pattern.The characteristics of GEO-HTS and LEO-HTS are very distinct. According to the differences of their characteristics, they can provide different businesses and meet different needs.Low-orbit satellites have advantages over high-orbit satellites in terms of low delay. Generally, the delay of LEO-HTS is less than 50 ms, while the delay of GEO-HTS is about 600 ms. Therefore, LEO-HTS is more attractive for services that are more sensitive to time demand, such as for voice communication and to guarantee emergency video. At present, most satellite communications do not require very high time delay. High orbit satellites cover a wider range and have a larger service area, which makes them more advantageous in broadband access services[2].

At present, HTS satellite launching, applications and promotion were a bit slower than expected. From the technical point of view, the existing HTS satellites cannot cover the global ocean area, while the satellite communications systems cannot implement roaming and internet connections. Interference amid spot beams using the same frequency might be generated due to scarce frequency resources, affecting the efficiency of communications. It lacks legal and policy guarantees, which leads to an unclear business model and investment direction of capital.

China has a complete satellite communications industry chain. Satellite manufacturing and satellite launching have high technical and financial barriers in the world; in terms of operational services, China's traditional operators such as China Satcom and Asia-Pacific Satellite promote services, Beijing Star Time Telecommunications Technology Co., Ltd. and China Communication Technology Co., Ltd. (CCT Technology) have actively participated; as for ground equipment, domestic participants are numerous, with antenna products and system integra-tion as their main business, including the 54th Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC54)and Satpro M&C Tech Co., Ltd., which owns key technology.However, domestic operators and equipment manufacturers have to make continuous efforts to occupy a greater market share and the development of globalization will become an important topic.

Figure 2 IP120 is installed in China maritime surveillance ship

5 SUMMARY

Future HTS satellites will be developed for broadband networks, global coverage, high-frequency communications,with flexible satellite payloads, flat terminal antenna, mobile applications, diversified operation to enable the integration of space and Earth. Application of HTS satellites in the marine field may revolutionize traditional satellite communication positions,which will not only be a supplement to traditional satellite communications, or a network communications in parallel with the ground, but further integrate communications access and terminals, realizing a positive change to end users directly. It will be a revolution in the field of satellite communications applications,which will completely change the existing marine communications operation mode and the business model.