A cost-effective alternative to a fiber-optic cable
- Paper ID
IAF-87-467
- author
- company
British Aerospace PLC, Space and Communications Division
- country
United Kingdom
- year
1987
- abstract
A communications satellite system is proposed that is designed specifically to compete with a long-haul underwater fibre-optic cable system. This requirement drives all aspects of the system design, particularly the modulation where a high order (256-QAM) system is proposed, as currently used on terrestrial microwave systems. The use of Ku-band frequencies, small spot beams and solid-state power amplifiers, allows the required satellite performance and capacity to be achieved based on realistic and available space hardware. The low number of earth stations in the system permits considerable complexity to be moved from the space to the ground segment, thereby minimising total costs. The resulting system competes well with the cable system, having a capacity eighteen times greater than current and planned cable systems such as TAT-8, and at a comparable total system cost.