The challenge

Ensuring high service quality for satellite communication

The advent and rise of data-hungry media, like HDTV, mobile services and satellite radio, have made satellite links indispensable for global communication. However, the amount of interferences and anomalies that negatively affect data transmissions will increase even more as a direct consequence of the growing number of satellites crowding the geostationary arc. This is a very serious issue, since satellite operators may not be able to deliver the required level of service quality, which might result in high contract penalties and, ultimately, in increased churn rates.

Isolated satellites
Existing satellite geolocation systems require at least two geostationary satellites in close proximity to each other in order to obtain sufficient crosstalk for reliable geolocation signal processing. And even though there are hundreds of them out there, many of these satellites are very isolated in terms of using different uplink frequency ranges, polarization and footprint coverage.

This is especially true for military satellites and satellites working in KA-Band. In these cases, crosstalk is either not applicable or too small to be measurable.

In addition, even if a suitable adjacent satellite is within reach, the system still needs to know the exact positions and velocities – or ephemeris data – of both satellites for accurate geolocation. This can only be guaranteed if the affected and the adjacent satellite are operated by the same provider, or if providers share their satellite operation parameters. The crosstalk on the adjacent satellite will still have to be within the same frequency range and polarization as the interference signal on
the affected satellite.

With all of these preconditions, traditional geolocation tools have reached their limits, and operators are searching for alternative solutions.