STM Announces New SatLink® VSAT Product and Development of New Hub Modem for High Throughput Satellites

March 18, 2013

STM Group, Inc. announced at the Satellite 2013 tradeshow, the newest and highest capacity member of its SatLink® family of VSAT indoor units. The SatLink 2910 builds on the proven SatLink 2900 VSAT while tripling its throughput. Multicast or streaming IP data is supported at rates up to 150 Mbps. Interactive IP traffic and bulk file transfers are handled with exceptionally high throughput as well.

The SatLink 2910, like all current SatLink products, supports the DVB-RCS2 standard for the best possible efficiency and link performance with ACM on DVB-S2 carriers and superior performance on TDMA carriers by using ACM per burst. Its capabilities deliver both higher return link throughputs and much higher link availability. TDMA carriers up to 8 Msps are supported, enabling information rates up to 24 Mbps on return links.

All satellite bands are supported by the SatLink 2910 VSAT indoor unit, including: C, Ku, and Ka bands. The new 2910 is especially well suited for powerful new High-Throughput Satellites in Ku and Ka band. In some maritime and mobile markets the efficiency gains realized can be up to 250%, even with conventional Ku band satellites.

Value-added IP networking features in all SatLink networks and in the SatLink 2910 include: advanced QoS, integration of traffic shaping with ACM controls, integrated link encryption using AES-256, VLAN tagging with private networking extensions, and mesh networking among VSATs. The SatLink 2910 includes a built-in 8-carrier mesh TDMA burst receiver for excellent mesh networking performance.

The SatLink 2910 is a 1U rack-mountable unit targeted primarily into maritime and other
professional markets for broadband multimedia services. It will also serve demanding
specialized applications for large commercial enterprises, such as oil & gas exploration
companies, as well as defense, homeland security, and other government ministries.

In maritime environments and other mobile VSAT markets the SatLink 2910 uses the VSAT Atenna Control Protocol (VACP), an open protocol developed by STM and supported by most manufacturers of stabilized antennas. VACP enables seamless beam and satellite handovers for mobile VSATs when roaming or experiencing blockages.

The SatLink 2910, like other SatLink VSATs, is fully configured and automatically controlled from the Hub, avoiding the download of configuration files or any manual actions during beam handovers.

The DVB-RCS2 standard includes all best-in-class technologies, like: linear modulation up to 16QAM; 16-state Turbo code FEC; and burst formats with encapsulation optimized for IP communication. This ensures the lowest possible overheads and best bandwidth utilization, while also removing the need to configure return carriers in SCPC mode simply to obtain high throughputs at the best efficiency. STM is currently the only supplier shipping products with support for the DVB-RCS2 standard.

Bjorn Platou, Executive VP and General Manager for Europe, noted: "STM expects the
launch of the SatLink 2910 to help continue the strong triple-digit percentage growth in
market share for SatLink and DVB technology in maritime, oil & gas, and other professional markets where the best quality, throughput, and the best overall link performance is required."

The SatLink 2910 will be commercially available in Q3, 2013.

STM also announced today a development project for a very high-throughput, integrated
TDM/TDMA Hub modem, supported by the Norwegian Space Centre and the European
Space Agency. This project will produce a compact 1U rack-mountable unit with 350 Mbps of IP throughput over DVB-S2 forward carriers with symbol rates up to 200 Msps. Also, the new DVB-S2 extensions currently being standardized by DVB, like 64APSK modulation, will be supported.

At the same time this new modem will perform burst demodulation for up to 64 DVB-RCS2 return carriers simultaneously, each using ACM per burst with an IP throughput of 150 Mbps.

The hardware platform for the modem will also contain an integrated Network Control Center (NCC) function handling all TDMA return link burst scheduling and burst performance tracking for up to 10,000 active VSATs.

"This new compact Hub modem platform has performance and density far beyond other
Hubs in the market with a total throughput of 500 Mbps per rack unit. It is an important and much needed advancement for VSAT networks, especially for those using new High-
Throughput Satellites. It will significantly reduce the physical Hub footprint as well as the
total cost of ownership for new Hubs, making it a good solution for smaller Hubs as well," says Helge Fanebust, Chief Technology Officer of STM.