ALUSAT – Always Up Satellite Terminals

Objectives

ALUSAT aims to optimise the operation of 2-way satellite networks by enabling maintenance procedures which minimize operational costs caused by service failures. This will maximise network availability and end user satisfaction.

ALUSAT combines traditional equipment management with spectrum monitoring and measurement in a new way to accurately derive the SIT status and recover, under certain conditions, of out-of-service or service-degraded SITs.

Challenges

ALUSAT:

• Allows the correlation and simultaneous monitoring of radio and terminal configuration parameters, providing relevant and prompt information for network management and SLA reporting,


• Enables automatic and operator-handled fault-correction tools as a powerful capability to improve network performance and demonstrate to service providers the ability to minimize network outages and underperformance,


• Exploits the possibilities for remote terminals recovery, avoiding unnecessary service maintenance visits,


• Allows automatic resolution of a significant percentage of faults, allowing NOC engineers to focus on investigating and resolving more serious problems.

Plan

The work plan includes requirements definition, design, development and validation during the one year project duration. A suitable commercial strategy will be defined and refined in parallel to the development phase for the proper positioning of ALUSAT in the satellite broadband business.

In the specification phase, maintenance procedures from relevant network operators will be looked at, in order to analyze the capability to detect failing SITs, failure diagnosis accuracy, and fixing methods. Other aspects to consider are service expectations, outage tolerance, and associated costs.

First hand information will be obtained from Spanish network operator HISPASAT, who will also support validation by deploying the system on its DVB-RCS platform for functional and performance assessment. ALUSAT will thus be dimensioned for the current 3.000 terminal population HISPASAT DVB-RCS network.

Current Status

According to the project plan the final review and acceptance took place in December. A first business success will be achieved when the system is deployed at Hispasat.