2/10/2020 ELC 523E - Satellite Data Services

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
Department of Electrical and Communication Engineering

LABORATORY
YEAR I YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5 ASSIGNMENTS
SESS
RADAR SYSTEMS & SATELLITE ENGINEERING
SATELLITE-BASED  DATA & BUSINESS SERVICES

Commencing in the 1970s, significant advances in technology have resulted in computers that are
faster, simpler and less expensive. As a result, they are now capable of providing real-time access to
production and economic data that are important for decision-making. The availability of new digital
technology, and the interest in improving productivity have resulted in an increasing demand from
industrial, financial and administrative organizations for a number of new services that were
impractical or excessively costly. The geographical distribution of computer facilities within an
organization or administration, that need to "talk together", can be overcome through the use of high-
speed satellite links.

Due to the recent explosive development of the Internet, satellite communications now offers the
advantages of direct user-to-user broadband links. In consequence, it is expected that data
transmission will offer new market opportunities to satellite communications.

The propagation delay characteristic of satellites could pose a problem to early protocols. Some of the
protocol error controls require a distant end response to each transmitted event, which, with a
satellite'hop in each direction, results in a total delay of about 500 ms while terrestrial circuits
(submarine optic-fibre cables), the same round trip takes tens of milliseconds.

Although the propagation delay can easily be compensated for, and protocols meeting the newest
international standards are satellite-friendly, throughput performance may inadvertently be impaired
by the use of a wrong protocol.

The advancement and convergence of the technologies of telecommunications and data processing is
often referred to as "telematic services" or simply “convergence of technology” and includes:

sharing of computational capacity between facilities (e.g. one or several centralized and/or
distributed computers);
real-time backup and recovery/continuation of processing during periods of failure in
processing systems;
establishment of high speed communications links for providing rapid exchange and switching
of information between major modes in data processing networks (with particular application to
data communications in the packet switching mode);
simultaneous updating of a number of distributed processing centres and outlying locations;
data bank transfer;
information broadcasting and data distribution (with or without return channels for
conversational/interactive processes);
facsimile transmission extending from simple low bit-rate facsimile to high-definition
transmission of printed matter, manuscripts, photographs, drawings, etc. for such applications
as Internet, electronic mail services, remote printing, etc.;
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teleconferencing facilities extending from the most simple audio conferences with visual aids to
more sophisticated image transfer aided conferences and up to full videoconferences between
multiple users.

The large scale development of satellite data communications, and, more generally, telematics, has
been allowed for in the planning of most satellite systems. National or domestic satellite systems in
the United States were the first to provide these business services in the mid to late 1970s. Business
services have become international in scope with the advent of the INTELSAT business service (IBS).
Additionally, the EUTELSAT business service (SMS) and TELECOM 2, HISPASAT (DVI), etc. for
European users, have been designed with characteristics filly compatible with the INTELSAT IBS, so
as to enable interworking between systems (see Annex 3 for more details).

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