Public Funding for Global Invacom Limited

To design and develop the next generation of software defined Digital Broadcast Satellite Transceivers to service multiple communication systems.

The need for affordable, high speed broadband services to rural areas of un(der)served nations is underlined by the United Nations and the ITU. Satellite service offerings are not yet viable for general consumers: monthly costs of satellite bandwidth and initial installed cost of user equipment are too high; outdoor units are too large ; and total available capacity and capacity density are too low and inflexible to form a significant component (eg 10-20%) of a national broadband infrastructure. Terrestrial technologies are also costly and impractical over very large sparsely populated areas and so isolated homes, businesses and communities are currently left disadvantaged. Methera is planned as a flexible constellation of MEO satellites to help fill the gap for partner nations who will be able to provide these services to small, low cost user terminals, at prices competitive with terrestrial technologies. Methera will be capable of providing 300- 1000Gbps capacity to each of 5-15 partner nations distributed around the globe. This study will allow the team to design and model the system and predict the distribution of capacity, cost and performance which can be delivered to meet the national rural broadband market needs of prospective participants which will hopefully lead to advanced sales.

There is a substantial and growing demand for ubiquitous high quality broadband. Satellite communications has a key role in delivering services to underserved and unserved areas, such as remote/rural regions or developing countries where the cost of laying terrestrial fibre or mobile networks is prohibitive. Service costs for future HTS systems will be heavily influenced by the ground gateway antennas used to connect to the spacecraft. This project aims to produce a genuinely novel and radically cheaper, lighter and technical more advanced product. The Phased Array Gateway will dramatically lower the cost of delivering future satellite data services, enabling and underpinning growth in fast developing telecoms markets such as sub-Saharan Africa. The project partners will develop a Proof of Concept demonstrator that will aim to develop advanced concepts from radio astronomy in the satellite communications domain. This Proof of Concept will leverage Global Invacom’s specialist RF and satellite product knowledge, bespoke phase combining techniques developed by University College London and specialist Digital Signal Processing skills from Riverbeck. The PoC will be tested over Avanti’s HYLAS satellite.

To develop a Fibre/Wireless (Fi/Wi) networking capability to support heterogeneous wireless communications, combining terrestrial and satellite, through new fibre-optic based Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS).