Artistic rendition of the Telesat Phase 1 LEO smallsat.
Image is courtesy of Surrey Satellite Technology.
Telesat and Telefónica International Wholesale Services (TIWS) have completed live, on-orbit testing across a wide range of applications on Telesat’s LEO Phase 1 satellite.
With a mission to increase agility and improve operational efficiencies, TIWS partnered with Telesat on a rigorous testing campaign to explore the performance and feasibility of leveraging LEO satellites for high-end services. Testing demonstrated that Telesat LEO could be a viable option for wireless backhaul and presents a substantial improvement in performance over geostationary orbit (GEO) links, without the use of compression or TCP acceleration techniques that are typically required in 650ms latency GEO environments.
Applications tested over Telesat LEO resulted in observed round trip latency of 30-60 msec without any packet loss. Test scenarios included:
- High definition video streaming, without interruption
- Video conference with teams, demonstrating consistent fluidity of movement and voice transmission with user experience matching terrestrial and cellular connections
- Remote desktop connection to seamlessly manage a remote computer
- VPN connection without any delay or outages
- FTP encrypted file transfers of 2 GB in both directions. IPSec tunnel encryption with no reduction in the performance of the link
Gustavo Arditti, TIWS Satellite Business Unit Director, said that the company is eager to explore how cutting-edge technologies, such as Telesat LEO, can integrate with the firm’s global connectivity infrastructure. Across every application tested, Telesat LEO delivered an outstanding performance, with significant improvements over what TIWS can achieve via GEO satellites today.
Erwin Hudson, VP, Telesat LEO Network, added that the ability to demonstrate fiber-like performance via satellite across a number of applications that perform poorly on GEO satellite backhaul is a testament to the capabilities of the Telesat LEO network. With its high-throughput links, ultra-low latency, and disruptive economics, Telesat LEO offers an unparalleled value proposition to expand the reach of 4G and 5G networks.