Spacecom, operator of the AMOS satellite fleet, and its long-term partner, ST Engineering iDirect, a company of ST Engineering North America, today announced the successful demonstration of VSAT return capabilities on AMOS-17.
The demonstration resulted in an exceptionally wide return link for a small VSAT of 40Mbps (15Msym) using the iDirect iQ 200 modem’s Adaptive TDMA return over AMOS-17’s high power C-band HTS beams. The combination of the 2.4m C-Band terminal and AMOS-17’s high-performance beams generated a highly efficient solution. The large return data rate enabled simultaneous transmission of multiple high data streams from South Africa to Europe with a small antenna, resulting in the low-power Communications-on-the-Pause (COTP) solution. This opens up many operational and business opportunities to customers, such as emergency deployments, government applications, coverage of events and backhaul services.
Conducted from the UK-based SMS Teleport, an AMOS-17 European Gateway partner, the modem and antenna were installed in a communications truck located between Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa. The truck was provided by Telemedia, a leading provider of broadcast and teleport services across Africa.
The iQ 200 is a DVB-S2/DVB-S2X modem with Adaptive TDMA returns, combining high-performance features with mobility, making it an ideal solution for real-time, cost-effective, small to medium enterprise applications, such as IP trunking for disaster response and emergency services as well as mobility solutions such as maritime.
“By utilizing the iDirect Evolution platform and iQ 200, we can now offer a unique low footprint, low power and high capacity return links from any remote location, enabling users to enter new markets and facilitate new applications,” said Tsachi Dahan, VP of Vertical Solutions at Spacecom. “AMOS-17’s C-Band spot beams provide superior throughput and efficiencies over Sub-Saharan Africa with connections to Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia. We look forward to presenting this unique value proposition to our customers brought about by this combination of satellite and ground segment.”
"We are excited to be involved in this important demonstration that brings out the greater potential of combining the right ground segment and high throughput satellite capacity,” commented Jerome Clapisson, Regional Vice President of Sales, Europe at ST Engineering iDirect. “This opens up a whole new array of applications for users that span many different applications and markets, and is synonymous with our goal of expanding market access to our customers by setting an industry benchmark in performance and efficiency.”