Space: The Ultimate Wi-Fi Hot Spot

The last few years have seen a significant increase of business activity in outer space with an increasing focus this year. Orbiting satellites are helping track everything from weather to cargo ships navigating our seas, among many other things. Advances in communications technology and the insatiable need to connect to the internet from anywhere in the world is quickly being enabled through space-based communications.

With the future of terrestrial communications becoming more dependent on orbiting satellites, along with our need for anytime/anywhere natural-disaster tolerant connections and hybrid living, the time is perfect for this flourishing technology.

As investments pour into this sector and space-based communications get a makeover, it begs the question—Is space the ultimate Wi-Fi hotspot? What are the key technology building blocks that are helping us ensure connectivity, security, and speeds that we demand today?

We are all familiar with some of the earliest business to consumer applications for satellite communications—DIRECTV connects many of our homes to entertainment and news, and Sirius XM allows us to enjoy any format of music in our homes and cars.

Starlink, with more than 3 million active customers globally, is clearly the leader in practical use cases due to the ubiquity of its 6,000-plus operational satellites in Low Earth Orbit at approximately 342 miles above the earth. This laser mesh network built by satellite nodes can deliver in excess of 150 megabits per second of internet speed with as low as 22 milliseconds of latency in many locations.

There are a plethora of companies deploying satellites into space every week. In fact, in 2023, $12.5 billion in private investment poured into space communication companies last year, a 30% increase from 2022. Most of this development is funding new constellations as communications infrastructure.

Iridium recently announced plans to make its Low Earth Orbit constellation compatible with 5G standards used by mass-market smartphones along with Starlink, AST Spacemobile and many others, and Viasat has an agreement with a primary U.S. defense contractor to support the use of broadband satellite internet to connect military vehicles and aircraft. Eutelsat OneWeb  launched a 600+ Low Earth Orbit satellite constellation providing enterprise internet connectivity services globally (also includes plans for 5G) including a focus in Antarctica for polar science and polar operations, noting that traditional internet connectivity in Antarctica is limited to solutions offering up to 5mbps at most, whereas the new service can deliver data rates of up to 120mbps with significantly increased reliability.

Low-orbit Earth satellites and SD-WAN: better together

All this increased extraterrestrial activity is a good thing for the communications sector and those of us who rely on always-on data, regardless of where we are located. But the issues in trying to receive data from space can be compounded by distance and the inhospitable environment.

Think about common issues with data transmission— bandwidth and latency issues can make applications perform painfully slow. Now multiply those issues—not to a local cell tower in the next town over, but rather to a satellite orbiting earth between 150 to 22,000 miles above the earth and possibly needing to send traffic to another satellite before reaching an earth station and on to the internet. Issues like latency and bandwidth can exponentially increase, causing issues for anyone trying to use mission critical applications. To further complicate this, some providers employ methods like packet queuing and other TCP-IP manipulation methods to make data speed seem faster. Combining packet manipulation with business-centric overlay technologies like SD-WAN can impede network performance.

As the name implies, “software defined” means a software layer on top of a physical layer, giving operators more control to reconfigure rules or policies quickly, and is well suited for cloud-based applications as well as all types of access methods.

I single out SD-WAN, as analyst firm IDC predicts the SD-WAN market will reach $7.5 billion by 2027 and will remain one of the most important markets in enterprise networking for the foreseeable future.

However, satellite communication encounters obstacles as a WAN access technology due to unavoidable latency caused by the signal's journey into space and back to earth.

Thankfully, there are solutions. Starlink, for example employs low-earth orbit systems that operate in closer proximity to the Earth’s surface, significantly cutting down on latency and processing requirements compared to conventional satellites. This advancement facilities seamless integration of space-based access routes into current terrestrial SD-WAN networks.

The outcome is low-latency, high-bandwidth communication that extends to even the most remote corners of the globe, previously unreachable by the internet. The concept is simple: wherever the sky is visible, internet access is available.

The Benefits of LEOs

As the cost of building and deploying a satellite in low Earth orbit decreases, we will all reap the benefits. According to consulting firm McKinsey, these LEO satellites will be able to inexpensively provide internet technology and access to rural communities hard to reach with traditional terrestrial infrastructure and on to things like monitoring vegetation that might be interfering with critical infrastructure, including power lines.

In fact, there are already deployments of high-powered SD-WAN over Starlink’s LEO network out at sea on naval ships and ocean liners as well as in access challenged locations on land, in natural disaster environments and simply as a diverse and high bandwidth access method to a branch location.

The surge in space-based communications is reshaping connectivity as we know it with SD-WAN's ability to mitigate latency issues, promising enhanced connectivity for a wide array of applications. As the cost of satellite deployment decreases, the potential benefits extend beyond traditional communication, reaching remote communities and enabling innovative solutions for monitoring critical infrastructure. The era of space-for-Earth applications is dawning, heralding a new frontier of connectivity and opportunity.