In my previous column I referenced the GVF’s contribution to the forthcoming International Telecommunication Union’s World Radiocommunication Seminar 2018 (WRS2018), December 3rd to 7th, which will take the form of a pre-Seminar Workshop Symposium, November 29th to 30th, focused on capacity building amongst the world’s regulators. A number of organizations will be supporting and contributing to the Workshop Symposium, including (at the time of writing) Hughes and SES, together with other GVF members currently finalizing their inputs.
These companies will make presentations, to be afterwards uploaded to the WRS2018 database, and provide service and technology demonstrations to
Workshop Symposium attendees, and in addition will be able to attend the WRS2018 Plenary sessions & networking opportunities.
The GVF’s classroom-based capacity building content – delivered by MBC – is designed to provide information about the latest technology innovations in satellite communications, with the objective of creating a greater level of understanding of the nature of the rapid mobilization of satellite based communication links. The efficient operation of earth stations and user-level maintenance is also explained, along with trouble-shooting methodologies that ensure minimized down-times. These skills are key elements contributing to the reduction and mitigation of the causes of satellite interference. Participating attendees will also have the opportunity to enhance their understanding of the latest satellite communications service trends, as well as of regulatory, policy and spectrum coordination issues.
This will be the first time GVF has collaborated with the ITU World Radiocommunication Seminar series, a collaboration which goes beyond an already long-standing relationship with ITU in other areas. This includes GVF’s membership of ITU-D, the Development Sector, and working with the Space Services Department in such other fields as challenging problems of satellite interference, as exemplified by GVF contributions to the series of International Satellite Communications Symposia on Space Interference, and also by the ITU providing keynote addresses at such events as the GVF Satellite Hub Summit @ CABSAT each year.
The 2018 event continues the series of Seminars which have previously been held in the Americas and in Asia, as well as in Switzerland to which the Seminar returns this year, located at the headquarters of the ITU.
Indicative of GVF’s busy December agenda is that whilst WRS2018 is being held in Geneva, December 4th will see the latest program in the GVF-EMP portfolio, the HTS Roundtable 2018 - GEOs… MEOs… LEOs: Enabling a Brave New World (www.uk-emp.co.uk/current-events/hts-roundtable-2018/), taking place in London.
The HTS Roundtable 2018 draft program (as of October 30th) is as shown below. The Roundtable this year is supported by our Corporate Sponsors – Comtech EF Data, Hughes, and Newtec – and Guest Sponsors – SES Networks, and Integrasys – and will kick-off with a brief introduction from GVF’s new Secretary General, David Meltzer, who took-up his post at the end of August this year.
David’s remarks will be followed by an opening Backdrop Presentation given by Stéphane Chenard, Senior Analyst with Euroconsult, who will provide an overview of the changing dynamics of satellite’s expanding markets, enhanced services, and evolving technologies. The program continues with four moderator-led sessions combining brief introductory remarks from each of a panel of speakers and Q&A-based interaction with the Roundtable audience.
This year the audience of pre-registered attendees will include AB5, Anver Ltd, Arabsat, Arqiva, Beaconseek, bigblu, British Telecom, C-COM Satellite Systems, CETel, CGI, Cobham SATCOM, Comtech EF Data, CVL, Effective Space Solutions, Euroconsult, Eutelsat, General Dynamics SATCOM, Gilat Satellite Networks, Global Eagle Entertainment, GoGo, GPS, Heriot-Watt University Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, Hughes, Hunter Communications, Inmarsat, Inster, Integrasys, Intelsat, Intertel Nigeria Limited, Iridium, Isotropic Systems, Kratos, M&J Communications, Mobile Internet Ltd, National Space Centre Ireland, Navarino UK, Neuco, Newtec, Novelsat, NSSL Global, Obrecht Info Ltda, OneWeb, Paradigm, pei tel Communications, ProBrand International, Satcoms Innovation Group, Sematron, SES, Space Intel Report, Spacecom, SpeedCast, STFC-RAL Space, Talia, Telesat, Telespazio, Ten Cate Advanced Composites, Terrasat, Traville Group, ViaSat, VT iDirect, and Yahsat.
Opening the first Roundtable Session – ‘The Operators… New Focus & New Orbits’ – moderator Michael Pollack, Founder & CEO of the Traville Group, will introduce panelists Simon Gatty Saunt, Vice President, Sales, EMEA Fixed-Data, SES Networks; Rob de Poorter, Head of Sales, Broadband Services, ArabSat; Gordon Grant, Manager, International Sales Engineering, Telesat; Richard Wyrwas, Principal Engineer, Government Services, ViaSat; Ronald van der Breggen, Chief Commercial Officer, LeoSat; and Marco Mirante, Regional Sales Director, Hughes. This group of experts from the evolving satellite operator ecosystem will not only focus on their respective organizations’ approach to a future operator market within which the GEOs, MEOs, and mega-LEOs will be either directly competitive or collaborative and complimentary, but also examine the implications of forecast growth in HTS orbital resources, capacity pricing trends, latency differences as a potential competitive divide, the Cloud and IoT markets, and trends towards competition down the value chain.
Better Satellite World Awards
Betty Bonnardel, CEO of AB5 Consulting, and chair of the UK’s chapter of the Society of Satellite Professionals International, will moderate Roundtable Session 2. I note Betty’s role with SSPI because just the evening before the HTS Roundtable, December 3rd, GVF’s Secretary General will attend the SSPI’s Better Satellite World Awards which were established to give recognition to companies and disruptive innovators that leverage the characteristics of an evolving satellite ecosystem to make the world a more prosperous, healthier, better-educated, more sustainable and more inclusive home for humanity.
The fourth Better Satellite World Award recipients were announced on October 25th and GVF, together with all the other signatories to the United Nations Crisis Connectivity Charter, has been recognized. The Charter, a mechanism created between the satellite industry and the wider humanitarian community and designed to make satellite-based communications more readily available to humanitarian first responders and affected communities – thanks to pre-defined and pre-set solutions allowing immediate response at times of disaster – was developed by the EMEA Satellite Operator’s Association (ESOA) and GVF and their respective members, in coordination with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), led by the World Food Programme (WFP).
When activated by the ETC, the Charter aims to foster more efficient cooperation between the satellite industry, local governments, non-government organizations (NGOs) and the broader humanitarian community in the initial stages of a disaster, allowing for better communication planning, increased connectivity and support for emergency responses.
The Charter helps support increased coordination by prioritizing access to bandwidth for humanitarian purposes during disaster responses and by allocating pre-positioned satellite equipment and transmission capacity in high-risk countries; and provides training and capacity building for the humanitarian community around the world. The Crisis Connectivity Charter will help ensure the ETC and its partners can better leverage satellite-based technology to provide life-saving connectivity to humanitarians and affected populations when disaster strikes.
This will not be the first Better Satellite World Award presented to GVF. In 2016, GVF was previously recognized for its work over a period of almost 20 years to establish a more effective and sustainable paradigm for global disaster preparedness, including coordination with partners throughout the disaster-response community – i.e., United Nations Agencies, humanitarian organizations, militaries, national administrations, inter-governmental groups, and others. At that time the focus of the International Award was on GVF having facilitated improved disaster preparedness and response efforts through its training portfolio and the certification of first responders, identifying qualified local technicians, coordinating satellite industry support, and educating governments on regulatory approaches that enable the use of ICT systems to save lives.
Returning now to the HTS Roundtable’s second session ‘The VARs… New Challenges in an HTS World’.
Michael Pollack, Founder & CEO, Traville Group returns to the dialog arena, this time as a panelist, and will be joined by Jack Beuchler, CTO, Quika; Yair Maor, Senior Director, Sales Europe, Gilat Satellite Networks; Sebastien Couvet, EMEA Sales Manager, Integrasys; Jo de Loor, Market Director, Multiservice HTS & Enterprise, Newtec; and Drew Klein, Director for International Business Development, C-COM Satellite Systems. Dialog here will encompass the transformation of the satellite broadband value proposition and the changing satellite Internet paradigm, as well as how the Cloud and the Internet of Things are bringing new opportunities to the Value Added Reseller proposition, and so evolving new dynamic markets, including in the mobile market.
The evolving dynamics of the ground segment in the growing HTS environment will comprise the theme of Session 3. Moderated by Anver Anderson, CEO, Anver Consulting, the session will cover increasing levels of terminal deployment and the consequently changing dynamics of satellite interference, together with facets of trends in terminal cost and market scales, related to antenna size and form factors, and the technology shift from parabolic to flat panel/phased array. Also included here will be current developments in optical quantum communications in regard to enhanced cyber security.
Andy Lucas, Senior Vice President, Operator Vertical, Comtech EF Data; John Finney, Founder, Isotropic Systems; Mark Lambert, Vice President, Business Development, Kratos; Ross J. Donaldson, Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow, Heriot-Watt University Institute of Photonics & Quantum Sciences; Mark ter Hove, Director, Aeronautical Sales Europe, Cobham SATCOM; and Craig Bowley, Director of Sales, Europe, VT iDirect will make up Anver’s panel.
The program concludes with Roundtable Session 4: ‘Mobility, Mobility, Mobility’ with me moderating discussion between Jags Burhm, Senior Vice President, Global Aero Mobility, Eutelsat; Javier Alexander Santos Wybenga, Business Development Engineer, Inster; Dan Rooney, Director, Maritime LoB, EMEA & Russia, Iridium; and Deepukrishnan Pillai, Senior Analyst, Strategy & Market Intelligence, SES. Discussion points to be raised here include what’s next for HTS and mobility on land, on sea, and in the air, and in trunking and backhaul servicing satellite integration in the 5G mobile world, but not forgetting enterprise VSAT, government and military, and expansion in broadband, video, and other consumer applications.
After a full day program concluding at 5.30pm, GVF will then turn to its Annual General Assembly and election to five of the seven positons on its Board of Directors involving a ballot of the Forum’s Full Members.
You can register free-of-charge for the HTS Roundtable 2018 - GEOs… MEOs… LEOs: Enabling a Brave New World at www.uk-emp.co.uk/current-events/hts-roundtable-2018/registration/ or you can contact me at martin.jarrold@gvf.org.
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Martin Jarrold is the Chief of International Program Development of GVF. He can be reached at martin.jarrold@gvf.org.
