Wireless takes off

Security is another concern, says Gartner research vice president Geoff Johnson.

“Enterprises are scared,” Johnson says. ‘But the issue isn’t technical management; it’s that people don’t deploy the security solutions available to them.”

Here is an opening for resellers to hold their customer’s hand organisations to ensure they use secure solutions. But Johnson cautioned that resellers hoping to succeed here must know the technology thoroughly in respect of their customer’s needs.

Low-earth satellites patch outback gaps in NBN plan

Farmers and remote communities can expect better call quality, less latency and fewer dropouts on their satellite phones after the second launch of satellites for the upgraded Globalstar network.

The “low-earth” Globalstar satellites would not compete with the satellite service provided to rural Australia under the National Broadband Network but would offer complementary services for mobile users, Peter Bolger, managing director of Australian satellite telecommunications provider Pivotel, said.

The NBN planned to use geostationary satellites in orbit 36,000 kilometres above the earth. Globalstar’s satellites sit in a much lower orbit, only 1400 kilometres up. The shorter distance means much lower latency which was essential for good call quality and some business applications, Bolger says.

Low-earth satellites act in a similar way to cellular network towers which hand a signal from one tower to the next as a mobile user changes location.

“Farmers will use the NBN satellite for internet to the premises. Globalstar satellites are targeted primarily at mobile users,” Bolger says. Business users may also prefer the lower latency connection for accessing their applications and servers remotely.

“Many corporate applications which talk to servers absolutely require the delay between the laptop and the server is kept to a minimum. Certain things don’t work well over geostationary satellites,” Bolger says. “These applications we see around the place are being designed for mobile phones on 3G and 4G networks. It’s important if people are going to enjoy the same productivity applications in the bush.”

Applications included asset management, such as tracking vehicles on large mines, and safety. “It’s becoming incredibly popular these days,” Bolger says. “There’s enormous growth for satellite-based monitoring and tracking.”

Although the NBN satellites would provide a 12 megabits a second downstream amd a megabit a second upstream connection compared to 256 kilobit service (symmetric) for Globalstar after the upgrade, the latter was a dedicated link and not shared with other users.

Bolger says the latest satellites will last 15 years, twice as long as the ones they are replacing. He adds it is possible to increase speeds to be comparable with 4G without needing to upgrade the satellites, which were “just transponders”.