Report on the benefits of satellite broadband released by UK Space Council

Both the government and industry have been advised to offer their full support to the development of technology used for satellite broadband services in recently released report by the UK Space Leadership Council.

The UK Space Leadership council has argued in the recent report that “the success or otherwise of satellite broadband in the UK will be determined by the acceptance of this new technology in the market and the take-up of satellite broadband capacity”.

There are currently two satellites owned by the UK and the first to be built was the Hylas-1 from Avanti Communications, which was launched on 26th November 2010. The second satellite, which launched on 26th December 2010, was the KaSat satellite from Eutelsat.

These satellites are both capable of providing 20 to 30 times higher efficiency when delivering broadband services than the legacy satellite that are currently being used and this is due to their use of the Ka-band radio spectrum.

The report, however, did note that the higher latency and fixed transmission capacity of satellite broadband meant that it did not offer users the same kind of experience that fixed-line fibre broadband services did.

Even with these limitations the report highlighted the fact that “satellite is able to deploy broadband services much earlier to users not able to get broadband until the advance of fibre networks into their communities, which in some instances could take several years”.

It added “Satellite is, therefore, a potential tactical option to deliver some level of service early,”

By the middle of 2011 as many as 150 000 people will be able to benefit from satellite broadband services and this figure is set to rise with up to 225 000 connection set for 2012 and by the end of 2014 there should be up to 300 000 users able to connect using satellite broadband according to estimates made in the report.

Source – Computing