XipLink Inc., a technology provider in multi-orbit connectivity, successfully completed multi-orbit, aggregated, and optimized bonded connectivity at the recent “Resilient LEO/GEO Demonstration” at the Maritime and Defense Technology Hub in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Each of the partners brought unique expertise to the event including systems integration, live GEO/LEO/Cellular links, Teleport Services and XipNet cloud connectivity for this live demonstration.
The GEO services were terminated using Eutelsat’s Advance Modem, while two LEO connections via OneWeb were terminated with Inster terminals for communications on the pause and Kymeta for communications on the move. Cellular data was supplied with standard 5G modems. These terminations were aggregated using the XipNet edge node, which provides bonded/balanced aggregation for all connections, routing, quality of service assignment, traffic steering, TCP acceleration and optimization in one unit. These links were aggregated and terminated in the XipNet cloud for simplicity and scale. The high-level view is depicted in the drawing below:
Many functional tests were run including aggregation of all connections for increased capacity, traffic recovery under failure scenarios including lost link (subsequent automatic return to primary), priority for voice traffic including normal and fail/recovery scenarios with no loss of SIP call connection, multiple file transfers for capacity test and classification tests for prioritization. Due to critical system requirements for the military and maritime users present, session persistence for TCP connections was essential for seamless connectivity in the multi-orbit configuration. The network was then opened to the audience for random live testing.
Artel’s Ed Spitler, who hosted the event said, “In one of the first live demonstrations for multi-orbit connectivity, it was amazing to see the cooperation of the partners as well as new technologies combining for flawless bandwidth access, increased capacity, proper assignment for the traffic paths and extremely fast re-assignment upon link failure or other blockages. Overall, Artel and the audience were extremely pleased with the outcome.”
Jack Waters, CEO at XipLink added, “We very much appreciate the opportunity to show the ease of configuration and outstanding results for the XipNet cloud service with remote aggregation capability. While not demonstrated at this event, by adding TCP and Optimization to links requiring them, XipLink is highly differentiated from other solutions with typically 30% higher goodput and outstanding user experience benefits.”