WASHINGTON— Across industries, the convergence of space and mobile technologies is now seen as inevitable and largely driven through improvements in technologies, price declines and standardization efforts. The convergence is creating opportunities and disruptions that may be new for the satellite industry but have been experienced by other industries in the past.

Industry convergences have always been challenging, Dr. Amina Boubendir, Director and Head of Research and Standardization at Airbus Defense and Space, explained during a recent panel at Satellite in Washington, D.C. The evolution of fixed and mobile and IP, the intersection of software and hyperscalers with cloud providers, are just a few examples of disruptions to business models and ecosystems.

“It won’t be different when we make mobile and satellite communications—or space communications in general—converge as well,” said Boubendir. “It’s both an opportunity and a challenge to rethink…how we can position players from the industry in the value chain where all of these different technologies will coexist.”

Industry leaders who attended Satellite agreed that creating this new ecosystem will demand cooperation within—even among competitors—and collaboration in the cross-industry working groups that are developing the standards and protocols for next generation, hybrid satellite-terrestrial networks. Opportunities for collaboration exist within organizations like the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), TM Forum, MEF and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) sanctioned initiatives, like the Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability (DIFI) consortium.

‘The Standards Process Is Ugly’

Of course, the past 25 years of the mobile industry have shown that standardization is easier said than done. “The standards process is ugly,” David Zufall, Vice President of Wireless Development at DISH (EchoStar) told an audience at Satellite. “But it’s critical to our industry.”

Beyond collaboration, Zufall noted that interoperability between the terminal and the network will be crucial to the process. It will simplify integration at the network layer and across the stack of communication protocols, making satellite connectivity more scalable and seamless for end users. “We’re kind of a utility now. And we’ve got to make sure we’re a darn good utility—easy to work with, low-cost providers that leverage virtualization,” said Zufall.

Mastering the Basics and Base Stations

3GPP’s work on next generation mobile standards has been the most compelling for the satellite industry, especially with the 2022 release of protocol to incorporate non-terrestrial networks (NTN) into the 5G ecosystem.

“All of this is really helping us to be more seamlessly integrated with terrestrial operators,” Carmel Ortiz, Vice President of Systems Innovation at Intelsat said of Intelsat’s efforts to adopt 5G technologies into its network. “So, it gets us out of that kind of exotic satellite technology world and lets us leverage the scope and the scale of what’s done in the terrestrial wireless industry.” Intelsat, an active participant in 3GPP committees, is also working to carry 5G standard waveforms on its satellites and employ a 5G core to manage its satellite terminals.

Intelsat’s efforts are typical of the focus on integrating the 5G base station, or gNodeB, into the satellite network—since it uses the same 5G New Radio (NR) protocols as terrestrial networks. Current 5G protocols support a ground-based gNodeB, or transparent payload architecture, where signals are processed in the gateway and the satellite acts as a simple relay. The next iterations of 3GPP (starting with Release 19 and beyond) will focus on 5G signal processing onboard the satellite, or regenerative payload architecture.

Already, companies and research organizations are working to solve the challenges associated with regenerative payloads. Mark Hogenboom, Special Projects Director at Nokia Mobile Networks explained there is still a gap between the solution and the physical limitations of the satellite.

“With every ‘G’ in 3GPP, they essentially quadruple the amount of processing required to get the high performance over the air or beamforming—all the capabilities. And 5G was no exception,” Hogenboom told Constellations.

In terrestrial 5G architectures, the processing takes place as close to the edge as possible, which means a heavy lift in terms of power and processing. “When that’s in the satellite, how do you do that? You can’t put a massive base station on a satellite.”

That’s just one of the big challenges ahead, he continued. “Where it gets interesting is what do you need to add to the standards to support regenerative? So, that’s really what’s emerging.”

A Market Worth the Effort

According to NSR, satellite solutions will account for 40% of the growth in telco enterprise connectivity revenue through 2027 or a $32.5 billion opportunity. Reaching that potential will depend on continuing trends in technology advances, reductions in the total cost of ownership (TCO) and active efforts to fit (and retrofit) satellite solutions to terrestrial standards. Given the investments required, it raises the question of whether the effort will be worth the market opportunity.

“That’s ultimately a question that we’re going to have to answer over the coming years,” Lucas Hansen, Vice President and General Manager of Wireless and Satellite Direct-to-Device Communications at Keysight Technologies told Constellations.

Satellite operators and vendors that are focused on a truly telco or commercial wireless use case will likely see greater cost advantages in those markets than those focused on more traditional satcom or MILSATCOM use cases, Hansen explained. Why? Because designing for those mobile or telco solutions will allow satellite players to leverage economies of scale in ways the industry has not been able to do in the past.

“It’s a new opportunity now, where commercial components and modules are becoming available to satellite use cases more than ever before. And commercial parts have been developed and tested for an ecosystem of millions of devices,” Hansen continued. “So, there’s a scaling factor where your classic [satellite] industry will have the opportunity to take advantage. I think that’s something that the size of the wireless industry can bring to bear to unlock new markets via price points not previously available in this industry.”

Explore More:

Podcast: Satellite Industry Shift, Demand Drivers and the $60B Market Opportunity

MWC 2024: Top Takeaways for Satellite

Network Operators Anchor on 5G

A Look Inside Tomorrow’s 6G Architecture