1.

0 Introduction
Many inhabitants of rural remote areas currently have no way of communicating
locally or with the outside world as no services are available in their region. As a
solution, a VSAT associated with a local loop is employed. In these areas, the
required number of lines typically ranges from 20 to 500 per local loop.
Rural users do not generate the same amount of revenue as urban users do, thus
lowering incentives for rural telecommunications investment with service to those
regions delayed as long as possible. Voice and data communications are essential
to the economic development of a region, and it has been shown that traffic
increases rapidly as soon as the service is available.
A VSAT system, combined with the Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA)
infrastructure, collocated with a wireless local loop (WLL) will be designed in this
project, but emphasis will be more on the VSAT system. System design
considerations include the type of traffic which can be carried, traffic rate, VSAT
network architecture/topology, modulation scheme used, multiple access scheme
used, foot print, link budget and ground segment antenna design.

2.0

VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) Overview

VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) is a satellite-based communications service

that offers businesses and government agencies flexible and reliable
communications solutions, both nationally and internationally, on land and at sea.
VSATs are most effective where the existing telecommunications infrastructure is
unreliable or where the vast size of the country or nature of the terrain prevents the
use of conventional land line or LOS radio links. However, even in highly developed
countries VSAT can provide effective data distribution at costs highly
competitive with the terrestrial network.
VSAT networks provide:
i.

Rapid, reliable satellite transmission of data, voice and video and an ability to
allocate resources (bandwidth and amplification power) to different users over
the coverage region as needed.

ii. VSAT industry is offering fixed network solutions that can provide a full suite
of services at reasonable price.
iii.

iv.
v.
vi.

Easy to provide point-to-multipoint (broadcast), multipoint-to-point (data

collection), point-to-point communications and broadband multimedia
services.
Flexible in the sense that it adapts to business and traffic environments.
Easy to manage network.
VSAT network is much more cost-effective than leased line. Pay-by-mile
concept in case of leased line sends the cost spiraling upwards, especially
if population is scattered.

vi.

vii.

VSATs are serviced not only in cases where the land areas are difficult to
install, say in the case of remote locations, water areas, and large volumes
of air space.
An ability to have direct access to users and user premises.