With satellite internet, network capacity is key

When the 阿F2 satellite was launched almost 20 years ago, it was the heaviest and most advanced communications system ever unveiled. 在2004年，它是内容容量之王，总吞吐量为每秒2gb. 在阿F2上托管的服务之一是WildBlue，这是一家位于丹佛的新卫星博天堂官方提供商，旨在提高农村地区的拨号速度.

In internet years, 2004 was a lifetime ago. 从那时起, 对更高速度和更大容量处理流媒体视频的需求已经极大地改变了局面. 2007年，WildBlue通过WildBlue-1卫星又增加了7 Gbps的容量. 

But 博天堂官方入口 had bigger ideas.

博天堂官方入口, which had been providing components for the company, acquired WildBlue in 2009, 与WildBlue现有的客户网络一起，建立一个容量更大的卫星. The ViaSat-1 satellite, 2011年推出, 具有前所未有的140 Gbps的容量——在当时超过了覆盖北美的所有其他通信卫星 结合.

The company followed that with ViaSat-2 in 2017. That brought another 260 Gbps of capacity, 能够提供更高的速度和更多的数据来处理不断膨胀的流媒体世界. Impressive as this was, the company’s leaders knew the demand for capacity was continuing to grow, and it was going to take much more powerful satellites to keep up.

当该公司宣布ViaSat-3——一个覆盖全球大部分地区的三颗卫星星座时, it came with a jaw-dropping figure: Each satellite is planned to have 1,000 Gbps of throughput (or 1 Terabit per second – Tbps), upping 博天堂官方入口’s total network capacity by over 700%.  

“It’s pretty amazing how far we’ve come since the days of Anik,” said David Ryan, Senior Vice President and President of 空间 & 商业 Networks for 博天堂官方入口 (he was also part of the Anik project). “1,博天堂官方入口期望每颗ViaSat-3卫星能够提供000 Gbps的吞吐量，这真的让博天堂官方入口走在了前列. Demand for high-speed internet has increased by 30-35% per year, and we must stay at the front of the pack. Demand will continue to increase.”

博天堂官方入口的增长将伴随着能力的大胆扩张，瑞安称之为“阶段性变化”,“与以前的卫星相比，每一项技术的进步都会产生巨大的容量增长.

“We’re looking forward to the next generation of satellites,”瑞恩说. “博天堂官方入口一直在追求固态电子技术的进步，使博天堂官方入口能够以超高速移动数据. 这就是博天堂官方入口如何取得技术突破，实现产能的巨大变化.”

为什么它很重要

而卫星的总吞吐量能力可能对平均终端用户意义不大, the result in service quality is something they most definitely will notice.

“You can use the analogy of mobile phone technology,” said Evan Dixon, President of Global Fixed Broadband at 博天堂官方入口. “They went from 2G to 3G to 4G and now 5G. 随着每一个功能的改变，它们从一代跳到另一代. They’re huge investments in technology, 通过突破性的创新，实现技术的下一个进步.” 

And every new satellite 博天堂官方入口 launches represents that next generation.

“It’s quite simple: The more data the satellite can provide, the faster the connection will be, 客户就会越高兴，博天堂官方入口的客户就会越多,”迪克森说.

博天堂官方入口怎么做呢?

博天堂官方入口 is able to accomplish these dramatic technological advances, Ryan说, because 博天堂官方入口 is a vertically integrated company that designs, builds and tests the entire network itself. 这包括卫星有效载荷、地面系统、用户终端、调制解调器等等. The only major component 博天堂官方入口 doesn’t build is the part of the spacecraft, 称为总线, that provides the power, pointing and thermal control. We partner with industry leader Boeing 空间系统 to provide that piece.

“This approach allows the company to test and make changes on the fly, 如果有必要的话, 想出最有效的方式将数据传递给地面终端用户, in the air or at sea,”瑞恩说.

In-flight capacity

容量增加带来的好处最明显的一个方面是博天堂官方入口的机上连接服务. With commercial airline customers — including  JetBlue, δ, 曼联, 美国航空公司和澳洲航空公司——以及大量的私人和商务飞机——博天堂官方入口已经证明，在空中实现与地面上相同的连通性是可能的.

“博天堂官方入口确实改善了对航空乘客的服务，这是肯定的，”瑞安说. “博天堂官方入口现在能够给飞机的每个座位带来极大的速度和容量.”

管理更多数据能力的大幅提升，使得使用博天堂官方入口服务的航空公司能够极大地改变整个机上连接和娱乐服务. 提供强大的服务不仅可以为乘客，也可以为机组人员提供服务，从每个座位上的电影和音频流媒体，到大大改善的机组人员通信，可以帮助处理从紧急医疗状况到提前天气状况的实时视频等一切事情.

高度灵活的

Having all that capacity is one thing, but another is ensuring it can be put to work as much as possible. Compared to low-Earth orbit satellite internet systems, 博天堂官方入口 uses the higher geostationary orbit for its satellites — about 22,200英里. At that distance, just three satellites can view almost the entire Earth, whereas low-capacity, low-Earth orbit satellites have only a limited view, 需要数百甚至数千颗卫星才能达到相同的容量和覆盖范围. And since much of the planet is ocean or uninhabited areas, those satellites spend over 90% of their time unable to “sell” their capacity.

ViaSat-3卫星还有一个非常强大的特点:灵活性. 在发射前，卫星的覆盖范围是固定不变的, 该公司的新一代产品将能够在需要的时间和地点移动产能.

“This enables 博天堂官方入口 to provide global service to planes, 根据业务需求，持续输送和远程客户，并移动这些能力,”瑞恩说. “博天堂官方入口可以根据需求对数据流进行点对点的处理. That’s incredibly efficient.”

在地面上

Like all satellite networks, 博天堂官方入口 requires a reliable, highly resilient ground network – and each satellite has its own, Ryan说.

“博天堂官方入口需要大量的地面传输和接收站点来跟上数据吞吐量,”他说. “随着博天堂官方入口的发展，博天堂官方入口总是会需要越来越多的门户，因为博天堂官方入口做这件事的方式是非常革命性的.”

As 博天堂官方入口’s satellites have grown more sophisticated, the ground stations have increased in number and decreased in size. 更多这样的“卫星接入节点”(简称san)不仅意味着一个更强大的地面网络，而且还意味着一个高度灵活的网络，并且由于如此多的san提供了冗余，它可以抵抗中断.

Learn more about 博天堂官方入口’s ground network evolution.

It’s all about streaming

Not all data capacity is created equal, Dixon says.

“It’s about the quality of the capacity and how it’s used. It’s all about streaming — that’s what’s driving the demand. 人们希望能够在更高的速度下观看比现在更多的视频，并能够观看4K分辨率的视频, 例如.”

ViaSat-3的能力将使其接近所谓的“自然使用”,迪克森说——这项服务允许人们以自己喜欢的方式使用博天堂官方，速度快，数据量少，降低了上网速度.

With no slowdown in customer demand on the horizon, 博天堂官方入口将继续致力于更大的容量，以实现更高的速度和数据处理.

“The world,”瑞恩说, “has changed.”

“We want to scale to more and more customers globally,” he added. “You have people working from home now, in some cases schooling from home and we have a lot of doctors using distance 医学. We must keep up with that demand.”