Satellite broadband
Look to the skies
Pravin Mirchandani looks at how companies across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East can benefi t from the latest developments in satellite-based broadband
an expensive ‘last resort’ connectivity solu- tion, suitable only for hard to reach locations has now become a cost-eff ective, value-added broadband service to complement an organi- sation’s existing network connectivity. T is rework of the enterprise satellite model now enables operators to mould their solutions in order to address the connectivity requirements of a far wider range of businesses, from multi- ple distributed ‘branch offi ce’ organisations to
I About the author
Pravin Mirchandani is chief marketing offi cer at OneAccess
n just a few short months, the market for business class satellite broadband has been transformed. What was once considered
bandwidth-hungry large enterprises in concen- trated urban environments. So what has changed? Well, in hardware
terms, very little. T e operator now installs a satellite-friendly intelligent access router on the customer’s site (or sites) as part of their initial equipment installation. T e step change oc- curs via the range of tailored services that the operator can provision via the router in order to maximise value from the new satellite link, combining its satellite-focused capabilities with the customer’s existing network connec- tivity. For both the operator and the enterprise, service versatility is the key.
A secure VPN solution By installing satellite routers in their branches, businesses operating across numerous distributed sites, such as petrol forecourts or hotel chains, can create a dedicated, reliable and secure virtual private network (VPN) that enables all branches, regardless of their location, to resolve a number of compliancy headaches. By providing a dedicated and private ‘secure tunnel’ through which payment information can be transmitted, a satellite broadband solution can support an organisation’s drive to
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comply with the Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) without incurring the often prohibitive costs of connecting all their branch sites to a terrestrial, wired infrastructure.
A DSL failover When DSL broadband fails it usually goes down in patches, not individual connections. T is means that urban businesses whose bandwidth- hungry offi ces all rub shoulders will often ex- perience an outage at the same time. Most IT departments will then react with the same busi- ness continuity solution: they will automatically fail over to a wireless 3G or 4G connection. T is mass data fl ooding of the GSM network creates problems of its own, often resulting in unreli- able signal acquisition and slower transmission speeds. T e knock-on eff ect is a reduction in the per-
formance of mission-critical applications and a negative impact on the operational continu- ity of the business. A next-generation satellite broadband solution, on the other hand, has no such concerns. By establishing a dedicated connection to KA-SAT and attributing agreed bandwidth to each customer, a satellite solution bypasses the GSM network and delivers consist-
LAND mobile August 2013
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