Page 83 - SAMENA Trends - March 2020

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Satellite Investment Boosts Cruise Ship Connectivity

Owners of geostationary and medium- “O3b mPower has adaptive resource we want to help manage all of that.” Mr.
Earth orbit (MEO) constellations are control,” Mr Martin continues, “so we can Martin does not expect these levels of
investing in higher-power satellites synchronize and configure dynamically connectivity will be met through just using
to increase Ku-band and Ka-band elements to tie back to cruise ships’ guest geostationary satellites, but with satellites
capabilities and renew C-band capacity. experiences.” For example, a beam could in multiple orbits and on board multi-band
Much of this capacity will be available for be dedicated to a cruise ship around one antennas. “We can support higher than 2
maritime VSAT users, but they will have specified area, perhaps in the Caribbean, Gbps even with the antennas out there,” he
to compete with other mobility markets the Mediterranean or in the South China says.
including aviation. SES is investing Sea. Or it could be deployed to meet the Geostationary HTS
around US$1.3Bn in a new constellation broadband requirements of a naval fleet. Intelsat intends to invest around US$800M
of MEO satellites and a high throughput “With O3b mPower, we will be able to in the next three years and probably
satellite (HTS). Of this, around US$300M scale up and down – to deliver 2 Gbps another US$300M each year afterwards
is for SES-17, a new HTS for maritime connectivity to ships,” says Mr. Martin. To on new HTSs for its Epic constellation.
mobility and cruise ship connectivity in the put this into context, many modern cruise This includes a rapid replacement for
Caribbean, Atlantic and the Americas. SES ships have connectivity of 200-500 Mbps a recent satellite failure and for its
Vice President for Maritime Greg Martin and merchant ships perhaps 10 Mbps second-generation constellation. Its
says SES-17 is scheduled to be launched if they have high-grade VSAT on board. Epic constellation started providing spot
in 2021. This will be followed by the O3b Some of the world’s largest cruise ships beams of high intensity Ku-band in 2016
mPower MEO constellation in H2 2021 could have up to 1 Gbps up and down from when Intelsat-29e was commissioned,
and 2022. O3b mPower is due to be set the satellite. “By mid-2022, there will be followed by five other satellites. The
into orbit on two Space X Falcon vehicles ships passing 2 Gbps,” says Mr. Martin. latest was Horizons 3e (H3e), which is co-
from Florida, US. “This constellation will “Guests want similar services as they get shared with Sky Perfect JSAT, providing
have seven satellites on two launchers,” on land,” he adds. “The market trend is coverage over Asia/Pacific. After this,
says Mr. Martin. “It can be expanded as it towards supporting the new generation widebeam satellite Intelsat 39 entered
is a scalable system.” These satellites will of passengers that have grown up with service, replacing Intelsat 902 in October
augment Ka-band capacity provided to everything on the cloud and applications 2019 to provide maritime mobility services
maritime and cruise ships from the existing on their devices.” Cruise ship owners such over Europe, Africa, the Middle East and
O3b constellation, providing coverage from as Carnival Corp and MSC Cruises use SES Asia-Pacific regions. Last year, Intelsat
the Equator and latitudes of +/- 50° latitude. connectivity to provide passengers with encountered a catastrophic fuel leak on
“This offers coverage in the main cruise internet services, access to social media, Intelsat 29e and lost this capacity. The
markets of the Mediterranean, Caribbean content streaming and video messaging. lost capacity has been covered by the
and Asia-Pacific,” says Mr Martin. “It can “2 Gbps will be reasonable in the next few Hispasat-143W widebeam satellite and
go higher, such as reaching the UK south years guaranteed for cloud applications,” from leased capacity from competitors.
coast and Germany’s shipyards, and SES- says Mr. Martin. “Guests and ships In 2022, Intelsat expects to restart its own
17 will extend this coverage further.” SES operators want this connectivity. Guests HTS coverage over the Americas from the
will control the coverage from O3b mPower will use cloud services to store their Intelsat 40e satellite. Maxar Technologies
as the satellites’ beams will be software- images and applications, etc. They will is manufacturing this satellite. “When
defined and dynamically configurable. synchronize these with their devices – it is launched, Intelsat 40e will be the
newest addition to our next-generation
Intelsat Epic platform,” says Intelsat chief
executive Stephen Spengler. “We continue
investing in new satellite and hybrid
technologies to connect people, devices
and networks.” Future satellites will carry
HTS software-defined payloads that could
be reprogrammed to configure spot beam
coverage. Intelsat expects to spend up to
US$250M this year followed by US$225-
300M in 2021. Its 2022 capital expenditure
could be US$225-US$325M. Five satellites
and ground infrastructure are in its
expenditure plan to 2022 which includes
plans to launch the Galaxy 30 satellite this
year and Intelsat 40e in 2022. Intelsat has
plans for three more satellites but has not

83 MARCH 2020