Satellite operator Telesat and Telefónica International Wholesale Services (TIWS), Telefónica Group’s international wholesale service provider, have completed live in-orbit testing across a wide range of applications on Telesat’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Phase 1 satellite
TIWS partnered with Telesat on a rigorous test campaign to explore the performance and feasibility of leveraging LEO satellites for high-end services, with a mission to increase agility and improve operational efficiencies.
Testing showed that Telesat LEO could be a viable option for wireless backhaul and present a substantial improvement in performance over geostationary orbit (GEO) connections, without the use of compression or TCP acceleration techniques that are typically required in GEO environments with 650ms latency.
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.
Erwin Hudson, vice-president, Telesat LEO, said, “The ability to demonstrate fibre-like performance via satellite across a number of applications that perform poorly on GEO satellite backhaul is a testament to the capabilities of our 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.”
