Spidersat Announces ‘SpiDirect’ - Africa's fastest, most affordable internet VSAT solution

New technological developments in satellite technology allow Spidersat Communications to now offer entry-level, low-cost, full throughput VSAT internet communications to customers with variable bandwidth requirements.

‘SpiDirect’, Spidersat’s new service offering, takes advantage of the broadband DVB-S2 communications standard and Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) to provide dramatically improved bandwidth efficiency and deliver low-cost, reliable and predictable internet connectivity. The service is delivered using C-band transponders on Intelsat 10-02.

Delivering up to 30 percent greater efficiency, DVB-S2 technology is the second generation of the Digital Video Broadcasting Satellite standard and features more sophisticated modulation techniques and low-density parity-check error correction codes (LDPC).

When used in two-way networks and enhanced with ACM, the operating parameters of the outbound carrier are dynamically optimized based on satellite link performance.

Continual, real-time automatic adjustments on a site-by-site basis means modulation and

coding schemes can be adjusted to account for any impairment of the outbound link to each terminal.

By dynamically changing modulation and coding according to current link conditions, Spidersat’s DVB-S2/ACM solution (SpiDirect) provides greater than 50 percent additional bandwidth efficiency when compared to other non-ACM DVB-S2 solutions.

Spidersat’s SpiDirect offering is a total turnkey solution with low start-up costs and is installed, configured and maintained by Spidersat’s highly-skilled, VSAT engineers.

Mike Hennessey, Managing Director of Spidersat Communications Limited, said the main benefit to the customer is that SpiDirect uses proprietary bandwidth management techniques that make the full contracted bandwidth available to customers. In other words, with SpiDirect, you get the bandwidth that you pay for.

“With many other competing products, up to 20 percent of the contracted bandwidth is used for signalling, link management, and reporting information.”

The SpiDirect solution provides customers with up to 2048 kbps on IP broadband inbound over a shared channel and 512 kbps outbound. The service also delivers landline-quality, direct dial voice performance with VoIP applications.

Spidersat is offering SpiDirect with a range of support options backed by highly-skilled engineers able to travel at short notice to a customers remote location, as well as 24/7 proactive monitoring.

Mr. Hennessey said “conducting business in remote areas where developed land-based networks are a rarity has always been a challenge with regard to the delivery of high-quality communications solutions.”

“In the past, changes in atmospheric conditions meant built-in margins were required to avoid degradation to satellite signals. These margins introduced additional cost. The new technology offered by SpiDirect will largely overcome the requirement for built-in margins and provide our customers with a highly reliable, high-speed and affordable solution.”

Mr Hennessey said another benefit of the ACM technology used by SpiDirect is greater flexibility in network deployments.

“Traditionally the specifications of VSAT services (antenna size, BUC size, etc.) within a network tend to be fixed from the outset, however the ACM technology incorporated in SpiDirect allows for far greater flexibility to cater to changing network needs allowing them to be up scaled to suit increased network load.

Spidersat Communications is supplying SpiDirect with the latest Evolution X3 series of iDirect modems that employ adaptive coding and modulation techniques.

This enables SpiDirect to make better use of satellite resources by minimising the amount of fade margin built into the link budget, further lowering the operating costs to its customers.

For more information on Spidersat SpiDirect Internet please contact Brian Rhodes on sales@spidersat.net or visit our website at http://www.spidersat.net.