Harris CapRock White Paper

Not All Bands Are Created Equal

A Closer Look at Ka & Ku High Throughput Satellites


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 1

INTRODUCTION
The advent of high-throughput satellites (HTS) enables network service providers to offer a new
generation of communications solutions. HTS systems combine the exceptional spectrum efficiency and
performance of spot-beam antennas with ultra-wideband transponders to enable unprecedented levels of
bandwidth and throughput. Each spot beam reuses frequencies in multiple carriers so that a single HTS
spacecraft can provide five to ten times the capacity of traditional satellites. For the customer, this
provides the potential to dramatically increase data rates, upwards of 100Mbps to a single site, and
improve application performance compared to traditional satellite based communications.
Despite this tremendous potential, there is a great deal of misperception and lack of understanding about
these new technologies among both customers and the industry at large. This is compounded by
marketing exuberance from some satellite fleet operators with their own specific and often proprietary
flavors of these emerging technologies. Customers and satellite network service providers alike need an
unbiased engineering perspective on the features, benefits and trade-offs of emerging HTS technologies.

ENGINEERING ANALYSIS OF HTS SYSTEMS
In order to better understand the real potential and practical application
of this new generation of HTS spacecraft, Harris CapRock
Communications, conducted an in-depth engineering analysis of
several HTS systems. Actual systems that are either currently in orbit
or in production for launch within the next 12 to 36 months were
examined. We used data available from the satellite manufacturers
and satellite fleet operators themselves, combined with our 30+years
experience to compile an analysis that enables a clearer view of HTS
capabilities considering beam coverage, power consumption, frequency
band, link availability and actual cost per bit of transponded capacity.
Harris CapRock does not own or operate any satellites directly. However, it is the worlds largest single
commercial buyer of space segment. We currently provide end-to-end managed satellite communications
solutions to thousands of remote sites worldwide utilizing over 4GHz of capacity across 60+different
satellites in C, Ku, Ka, L, X and UHF bands. We land that traffic in one of our 12 self-owned and
operated teleport facilities and connect directly to our customers networks through a global terrestrial
backbone network with 83 points-of-presence across 23 countries. Our approach is to tailor the right
technology for our customers unique application environment. We are technology and frequency band
agnostic, focused solely on designing a solution for its performance and operational efficiency.
Therefore we are uniquely positioned to provide unbiased perspective on the real potential of HTS
systems. It is important to note that Harris CapRock clients operate exclusively in remote and harsh
environments including the energy, mining, maritime and government markets. As such, the perspective
of this analysis focuses on satellite network services that operate in truly mission critical and remote
operations, where network reliability, actual user throughput, and application performance are the highest
priority. This white paper is not intended to draw any conclusions as to the applicability of HTS for mass
markets or consumer-grade services where lowest possible price may be a higher consideration.





Harris CapRock compared the
designs, technical capabilities, and
operational trade-offs of eight
current and planned HTS Ka and
Ku band systems, including two of
the most widely discussed within
the industry, Inmarsat Global
Xpress and Intelsat EPIC
NG
.


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 2

OVERVIEW OF HIGH THROUGHPUT SATELLITES
Originally most HTS systems were designed for mass markets and to operate in Ka-band where small
antenna aperture antennas can provide narrow spot beams. However, satellite operators are now
applying HTS technology and spot-beam antennas to new Ku-band spacecraft. As these HTS systems
proliferate, operators of VSAT networks will have new technology choices when implementing solutions
tailored to the application environment of their clients. HTS systems and capabilities can be leveraged in
a variety of ways to extend the portfolio of satcom service offerings available on the market.
This whitepaper compares several key aspects of Ka-band and Ku-band HTS systems in the context of
the VSAT network services. As part of our in-depth engineering analysis, Harris CapRock compared the
designs, technical capabilities, and operational trade-offs of eight current and planned HTS Ka and Ku
band systems, including two of the most widely discussed within the industry, Inmarsat Global Xpress and
Intelsat EPIC.
For the purposes of this paper, an HTS system is defined as a
satellite system that uses a large number of small spot beams
distributed over its service area. These spot beams provide high
signal strength and signal gain (EIRP and G/T), which allows the
satellite to close links to small aperture earth stations at high
data rates with positive rain-fade margin to provide good overall
link availability. A typical HTS has a significant number of ultra-
wideband transponders distributed among the beams, each with
a bandwidth well over 100 MHz.

HTS spot beams generally have 3dB beamwidths between 0.5 and 1.5 degrees. Spacecraft have been
built or proposed with antennas ranging from a dozen to more than a hundred spot beams. HTS
payloads commonly have 5 to 10 GHz of transponder bandwidth but channel frequencies are reused
numerous times in geographically isolated spots so that the spectrum needs of the system are
constrained within available satellite bands. Spot beams may be steered or fixed relative to the satellite.
Since the spot beams have limited geographic coverage, HTSs generally have special gateway beams
and transponders specifically to support connections with teleports.
The narrow beamwidths associated with spot beam antennas are created by employing relatively large
antenna structures that focus downlink energy and have large areas for collecting uplink energy.
Consequently, these antennas greatly improve link performance, providing high data rates at much better
availability than traditional regional and hemispherical beams. However, since these antennas
accomplish their link improvements by focusing the radio signals into small spots on the earths surface,
these improvements come at the price of geographic coverage.
The developers of HTS systems must balance their geographic coverage needs against the superior link
performance that small-spot beams can provide. The coverage/performance trade off is particularly
important for Ka-band HTS systems, where the links are especially susceptible to propagation
impairments due to rain and other atmospheric disturbances. Antennas size scales inversely with the
square of the frequency. Therefore, using very narrow spot beams to mitigate these propagation
impairments is particularly attractive in Ka-band. On the other hand, the number of transponders, the
payload complexity, and the spacecraft power requirements all scale directly with the number of beams
on the satellite, so very small beams also limit the available service area of the HTS.



The perspective of this analysis
focuses on satellite network
services that operate in truly
mission critical and remote
operations, where network
reliability, actual user throughput,
and application performance are
the highest priority.


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 3

The natural contention between coverage and link
performance has tended to divide Ka-band HTS systems into
two classes: those optimized primarily to achieve high
availability links and those optimized primarily for large area
coverage. The first class is characterized by fractional-
degree antenna beam widths, whereas the second class
sacrifices link performance to use larger spot beams. Of
course, a great many considerations and tradeoffs go into
the development of satellite communications systems, so
this classification is a simplification of a much more complex
situation. Nevertheless, Harris CapRock has found this
coverage/link performance dichotomy useful when
comparing Ka-band HTS.


At lower frequencies (such as Ku-band) where the links require smaller margins to overcome propagation
impairments, HTS systems have tended to use only wider spot beams, and the small-spot/large-spot
classification is less useful. The remainder of this white paper will compare three classes of HTS systems:
Ka-band small spot beam systems, Ka-band large spot beam systems and Ku-band spot beam systems.
Like most modern satellite systems, HTSs are often multi-purpose designs. HTS antennas may provide
large regional and hemispherical beams as well as spot beams. HTS payloads may include transponders
for several different satellite bands. This paper will focus exclusively on spot beam services in the fixed
satellite service bands in Ku-band and Ka-band.
The HTS spacecraft analyzed in this paper are in geosynchronous earth orbit. There have been
promising proposals for Ka-band HTS systems in low earth orbit and medium earth orbit as well, and at
least one such system has announced launch plans in 2013. Harris CapRock is following these
developments with interest. However, this white paper does not address systems outside the
geosynchronous arc.









Ka frequencies are almost twice the frequency
used by Ku. The higher the frequency, the
more a signal is susceptible to rain fade.
When high frequencies are transmitted and received in a heavy rain fall area, noticeable signal
degradation occurs and is proportional to the amount of rain fall (known as rain fade).

Ka-band has a large avail ability disadvantage:
Downlink: Rain dissipates 3 to 10 times more energy at Ka-band than at Ku-band (11 GHz vs. 20 GHz)
Uplink: Rain dissipates 63 to 400 times more energy at Ka-band than at Ku-band (14 GHz vs. 30 GHz)


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 4

HIGH THROUGHPUT SATELLITE SYSTEMS COMPARED
We have evaluated many existing and proposed Ka and Ku-band HTS systems from our perspective as a
VSAT network service provider and have reached some general conclusions about their potential use for
customers in remote or harsh operating environments, who generally place a higher priority on network
reliability, user throughput, and application performance. The evaluation considered technical issues
such as link performance and availability, as well as commercial issues such as bandwidth costs, the
ability to respond to different customer demands, and the ability to support new services and emerging
applications. Since existing and proposed HTS systems are currently targeted for Ka-band and Ku-band,
our evaluation was limited to comparing the merits of HTS systems in those two bands.
Table 1 is a qualitative summary of our conclusions regarding the relative strengths of Ku-band
and Ka-band spot beam HTS systems. The table also includes a column for traditional Ku-band
satellites with regional and/or hemispheri cal beams. The well-understood capabilities of these
satellites provide a valuable basi s for comparing the network service improvements that can be
realized with the spot beam systems.

Table 1. Summary Comparison of Ka-Band and Ku-Band HTS Systems



The factors compared in Table 1 represent the most crucial aspects of the space segment for a VSAT
network service provider. The check-marks represent where a particular space segment option provides
the best value for the service provider and ultimately the end customer. When multiple columns are
checked for a given factor, it indicates that those options are judged to be equally valuable for the service
provider. This does not mean the options have the same or even similar characteristics in that area,
rather it means that even if the systems have quite different characteristics, their overall value
propositions in the context of the factor in question are of roughly equal value for a VSAT network. The
next few paragraphs briefly discuss the factors listed in the table.

Check-marks represent where a particular space segment option provides the best value. HTS Ku-band
technologies outperform Ka-band in high rain zone environments.


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 5

Cost per Hz and Bps/Hz
The use of spot beams allows both the Ku-band and Ka-band systems
to achieve high spectrum efficiencies. Further, HTS systems in both
bands use ultra-wideband transponders and frequency reuse. These
features create an economy of scale that allows satellite operators to
offer bandwidth at attractive and comparable prices. However, this
advantage is eroded when a Ka-band system sacrifices link
performance in favor of coverage by using larger spot beams. This
approach is currently being utilized by a to-be-launched global maritime
based service. These factors are not discriminators between the Ku-
band spot and Ka-band small spot systems, but Ka-band large spot
systems do not fare as well from this perspective. As a result HTS Ku
spot systems actually tend to demonstrate a cost per bits per second
that is more favorable than Ka, when compared at the same link
availability design requirement and larger spot beam sizes.
Coverage
Spot beam systems are by their nature limited in coverage. Each spot beam generally covers at most a
few thousand square kilometers. However, some HTS systems provide large fields of spot beams that
collectively create continental and even global coverage, whereas others offer only a relatively small
number of fixed or steerable spots in targeted areas. Ku-band spot beams and Ka-band large spots
beams are similar in beamwidth and so are generally comparable in system coverage. Ka-band small
spot beams, however generally cover only about 10% or 15% of the area covered by a large spot beam
and these spacecraft tend to offer less total spot beam coverage
Flexibility and Bandwidth Portabil ity
The commitment to the development of an HTS system represents a substantial and long term
investment of resources, not just for the satellite operator but also for network providers and customers as
well. The anticipated lifetime of these systems is greater than a decade, and yet their target marketplace
is dynamic. Over the long term, the energy, maritime and government sectors are subject to
transformation or disruption by factors such as new mineralogical discoveries, changes in shipping
patterns, or international crises. Thus it is advantageous to be able to relocate services and capacity to
respond to major changes in the marketplace. Multiple satellite systems with near global coverage such
as some of the Ku-band and Ka-band large spot systems can respond to these changes more readily
than the small spot Ka-band HTS systems. Ku-band HTS systems and Ka-band systems with other
frequency backup have the additional benefit that their VSAT links can, if necessary, be reallocated to
traditional systems, albeit in some cases at a loss of service performance if the back-up service operates
in significantly longer wavelength such as L or UHF bands.
Abil ity to Recover from Satellite Failure
A great deal of Ku-band satellite service provided by traditional spacecraft is available virtually
everywhere in the world. On the other hand, Ka-band service is relatively sparse. Many Ka based
systems are also proprietary or closed networks that require specific satellite modem technology or
configurations that are not available from other providers. Thus, in the event of a failure on an HTS
spacecraft resulting in loss of service to a spot beam or beams, it is possible to mitigate the service
impact by migrating customers in the affected area to an alternate Ku-band satellite. This back-up
capability is less likely to be available at Ka-band. A similar back-up service could be provided adding a
backup service for Ka-band in Ku-band or some other satellite band, but that would require additional
ground terminal hardware and on-site electronics.

Harris CapRock calculated the actual
cost per Mbps to deliver service at
varying availability levels. The analysis
normalized each satellite technology to
get a better side-by-side comparison.
When compared at the same link
availability, HTS Ku spot systems
demonstrate a cost per bits per second
that is more favorable than Ka.


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 6


Remote site equipment
prices are significantly
higher for Ka-band.

*Ka Band teleport earth
stations require high
accuracy tracking and high
accuracy reflector.

Pricing based on data from
satcomresources.com during
August 2012.
VSAT and Equipment Costs
Ka-band VSAT systems are less common in the marketplace and therefore can be more expensive than
Ku-band systems of similar performance. While mass market systems designed primarily for direct-to-
home users are becoming more available at low price points. These systems are generally not suitable
for industrial environments in terms of both performance and hardware reliability. In addition as discussed
below, the realities of RF propagation drive performance requirements for larger Ka-band earth terminals.
This means that sub-meter sized consumer grade terminals cannot deliver the speed or link availability
typically required by industrial installations. Larger Ka-based terminals of 1.2M or greater are not yet
produced in meaningful quantities and therefore remain more expensive than Ku-band terminals.

Component Ku band price Ka Band price
PLL type LNB $200-$250 $ 1,500
BUC $4,000 (8 watt)
$ 6,000 (4 watt)
$12,500 (10 watt)
Teleport Earth Station*
(9m) w/o civil works
$600,000 $1,300,000

Conversion Cost
Harris CapRock currently manages over 4,000 VSAT terminals located around the world. Transitioning
any significant fraction of these customers to Ka-band would represent a substantial investment. On-the-
other-hand, Ku-band terminals can be transitioned from their current satellite to a new spot beam satellite
simply by repositioning the antenna.

New Spectrum Avail ability
One of the chief selling points for Ka-band satellite services is that the spectrum is relatively unused,
while the lower frequency satellite bands are all heavily subscribed. The use of spot beams at any of
these frequencies allows a much higher frequency reuse which greatly multiplies the data throughput that
can be achieved in the available bands. Spot beam designs in HTS spacecraft offer a way to extract
much more efficiency and coverage out of currently available Ku space segment spectrum.

Service Rel iability
The much smaller wavelength and higher frequency of Ka-band makes its links far more susceptible to
disruption from weather and other atmospheric disturbances than Ku-band links. The use of spot beams
improves Ka-band performance, but links with Ku-band spot beams remain much more reliable. Obtaining
the same level of link availability (say 99%+) in a Ka spot beam, would require exponentially more
transponder power than a comparable link and antenna size in Ku-band. It is therefore much more
difficult and expensive to provide high availability and reliable services in Ka-band than in Ku-band
particularly in regions where heavy rainfall is common.


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 7

Customer Market Perception
Ka-band satellite services have gained general customer acceptance and Ka-band is widely viewed as
the wave of the future for SATCOM. Ku-band SATCOM is generally viewed as business as usual and it
does not excite the imagination of VSAT customers. This perception has been in part created by
marketing hype over Ka, promoted by fleet operators in the consumer or maritime mass markets.
However, this perception is overstated and does not fit all application environments. A similar
phenomenom was observed in the 1980s when Ku-band systems first appeared. Many industry pundits
speculated that C-band would all but disappear from use in VSAT applications. Quite the contrary, C-
band continues to grow as an important band in industrial, military, and especially maritime applications
where atmospheric interference is particularly acute. This perception may change as the capabilities of
Ku-band HTS systems become more widely known, but at this time Ka-band has a somewhat inflated
advantage in market perception. In general, all frequency bands have their place in satellite
communications. It is the application environment that tends to determine the appropriate band, rather
than a satellite fleet operators band of choice on a particular satellite constellation.

TRUE RELATIVE COSTS OF KU- VS. KA-BAND SERVICES
Customers who operate in remote and harsh environments use satellite services for time sensitive,
mission critical communications. These customers demand high availability, reliable communications
links. A substantial part of the evaluation effort in this study went to determining the real relative cost of
providing these highly reliable communications services using Ku-band and Ka-band HTS systems. Ka-
band is often promoted in marketing presentations as substantially cheaper to operate than Ku-band.
However a pragmatic analysis shows this is not the case for high availability networks.
Our approach was to determine the cost to provide a unit of constant bit rate (CBR), user capacity, as a
function of the service availability. In performing this analysis, we considered a number of existing and
proposed HTS systems and VSATs located in various regions where we have or expect to have a
substantial customer community.
Figure 1 below shows the relative cost of providing a CBR service as a function of service availability,
under different climatic conditions for the three classes of HTS systems considered in this whitepaper.
Relative performance characteristics are provided for 1.2m VSATs located in temperate, tropical and arid
regions. The analysis isolated the effects of satellite technology and frequency band by using similar
VSAT to satellite look angles in the various regions, as well as common gateway locations. To the extent
possible, given the different frequency bands, common earth terminal characteristics were used. Further,
teleport locations and gateway terminal performance parameters were selected such that the VSAT to
satellite links dominated the availability. The results shown in the figure are for the outbound (i.e. GW-
SV-VSAT) link which is the most difficult to manage in these VSAT systems due to the need to manage
satellite power resources as well as satellite bandwidth. One often sees Ka-band VSATs designed with
larger antennas in heavy rain regions, but that represents a serious drawback for many VSAT customers
and if allowed, could be equally advantageous at Ku-band. Larger VSAT antennas were not considered in
this study. The HTS cost data used to construct these curves are based on the lowest cost proposals that
have been provided to Harris CapRock for these types of systems.







2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 8

KU-BAND HIGH AVAILABILITY ADVANTAGE
The data in Figure 1 below indicates that the cost of providing a high availability service is always lowest
with a Ku-band HTS system. The cost difference between a small spot Ka-band HTS and a Ku-band
HTS narrows as the availability of the service is reduced and in many locations the Ka-band small spot
system is at near parity with the Ku-band system for availabilities less than around 98% to 99%. The Ku-
band HTS has a significant and distinct advantage for customers who demand very high service reliability
and as the availability increase from 99.5%, the Ku-band cost advantage grows rapidly.
The large spot Ka-band HTS systems do not appear to be cost competitive for providing CBR services of
this type in any of the regions considered. Its costs were around 2X to 3X the costs for the other systems
regardless of the service availability.
Ka-band radio signals are more severely impacted by rain and other transient propagation conditions than
lower frequency signals, like Ku-band. Consequently, Ka-band links require higher fade margins for a
given service availability than lower frequency links, and Ka-band HTS spacecraft are designed to provide
these margins. As noted above, this can result in a cost penalty for the Ka-band systems when
customers demand high service reliability. However, this disadvantage can in some cases be turned to
the advantage of Ka-band services, for customers whose service needs can tolerate lower availability
such as mass market or consumer clients.

Figure 1. Rel ative Cost of Constant Bit Rate (CBR) Service
Cost vs. Avai lability Curves Temperate

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Temperate Region
1.2 m VSAT
Ku-Band Spot Ka-Band Small Spot Ka-Band Large Spot
Ku-band Spot provides best cost performance
Ka-band Small Spot does well below 99.5% availability


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 9

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Ku-Band Spot Ka-Band Small Spot Ka-Band Large Spot
Cost vs. Avai lability Curves Tropical


















Cost vs. Avai lability Curves Arid

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Arid Region
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Ku-Band Spot Ka-Band Small Spot Ka-Band Large Spot
Ka is not competitive in tropical rain regions
without backup

Ku-band spot provides best cost performance
Ku-band Spot provides best cost performance
Ka-band Small Spot does well at lower availabilities

Small spot Ka HTS systems suffer a
severe cost disadvantage in harsh
climate regions, even for moderate
availability services.

In the tropical region, the Ka small
spot system remained 2x the cost of
providing the same service quality
with Ku HTS for as low as 98%
availability.


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 10


The small spot Ka-band HTS systems suffer a severe cost disadvantage in harsh climate regions, even
for moderate availability services. In the tropical region the Ka-band small spot system remained around
2X the cost of providing the same service quality with a Ku-band HTS for as low as 98% availability. In
this region it was difficult to provide a service availability at 99% or higher at any reasonable cost when
using Ka-band. This cost disadvantage is largely due to the power penalty incurred by the Ka-band
systems in order to provide the large rain margins necessary for even moderate link availability at Ka-
band in areas of frequent heavy rainfall. While small spot beams are helpful in this situation, they cannot
completely overcome these propagation issues and provide a practical high availability service unless
they are coupled with large earth terminals. This solution has its own cost issues and falls outside of the
VSAT business area addressed by this paper.

KA-BAND CLEAR SKY ADVANTAGE
The advantage that their large fade margin capability brings
to Ka-band HTS systems can be seen by recognizing that
the links seldom actually use the power and bandwidth
resources represented by the link margin. The propagation
impairments that the link margins are designed to mitigate
are by definition rare occurrences. If, for example, a link is
designed with link margins to provide 99% availability, that
means that the link has enough power and bandwidth that it
will fail to achieve its minimum operating data rate and error
criterion no more than 1% of the time. Normally, links have
more power and bandwidth than they need to meet these
criteria, and Ka-band links have a great deal more.
When not needed to combat propagation impairments, the power and bandwidth resources available for
the link margin can be exploited to operate the link at a higher data rate. This is accomplished by
adapting some combination of the power, modulation and forward error correction coding used on the
link. While link margins may be exploited that way at any frequency, the exceptionally large link margins
used at Ka-band make this an especially effective strategy. Downlink data rates can be increased by
factors of up to ten depending on the regions and availabilities in question and hundred-fold increases in
uplink data rates are not out of question.
The high data rates that can be achieved by adapting the link parameters in real-time to exploit unused
link margin are of course only obtainable at lower availability than the link minimum data rate. However,
since typically only a small fraction of VSATs will be operating under impaired conditions at a given time,
the total VSAT network throughput can be greatly enhanced by this technique. It is particularly effective
for variable bit rate (VBR) and best effort services. The technique of averaging the data rates of large
quantities of VSAT sites across multiple regions, including arid climates, is used by Ka providers in order
to calculate higher averaged network data rates. By heavily leveraging the high rates available during
clear sky conditions, Ka operators boost average transmission data rates. Of course, the data rates and
availability in the heavy rain regions suffer in comparison to the high data rates boasted.





Mitigation techniques can help compensate
for fades, but provide only a partial solution.
With Adaptive Power Control, the transmit
power is adjusted to achieve better
availability. While increasing transmit power
provides more protection against signal fade,
it also leads to significant cost increases.
Dynamic power fluctuation may also affect
the life and reliability of the satellite (battery
life, power supply).


2012 Harris CapRock Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. | www.harriscaprock.com 11


Next generation High Throughput Satellites
include both Ku and Ka.

There are many different variations of
technologies using the Ka-band frequencies.

Ka is an appropriate technology for mass
markets and non-industrial markets.

Side-by-side technical and cost comparison
of Ka and Ku HTS solutions shows
significant technical and cost challenges
with most Ka solutions for customers with
high reliability and availability needs.

HTS Ku platforms offer the best overall
performance and value for operations for
mission critical, maximum uptime networks.

CONCLUSION
Customers with industrial-grade operations in remote and
harsh locations, like energy exploration and production,
mining, commercial maritime, and government demand
highly reliable communications services and have ever
increasing bandwidth requirements. For these kinds of
clients, our in-depth analysis shows that Ku-band HTS
systems have a distinct advantage over Ka-band HTS
systems, as well as traditional regional and hemispheric
beam systems. While Ka-band HTS can be quite
competitive for customer services that do not require
particularly high reliability, such as consumer broadband
access, they generally do not enable the bandwidth or link
availability required by industrial customers, without an
excessive, and therefore costly use of spacecraft power and
resources.
As a global satellite network service provider, Harris
CapRock continually evaluates emerging communications
technologies for applications in our client solutions. High
Throughput Satellites in both Ku and Ka-band frequencies
show great promise to provide customers with a variety of
next generation communications solutions.




The perspective of this analysis focuses on satellite network services that operate in truly mission critical and remote operations, where network reliability, actual user
throughput, and application performance are the highest priority. This white paper is not intended to draw any conclusions as to the applicability of HTS platforms for mass
markets or consumer-grade services where lowest possible price may be a higher consideration. All images and graphics within white paper are for illustrative purposes only.

Harris CapRocks mission is to evaluate & offer
the best solution to meet customer requirements.
For more information on our analysis of next
generation Ka and Ku-band High Throughput
Satellites, please contact your account executive
or use the information provided below.

[email protected] | 1.800.343.8334

Read our August 2012 article published in the
Harris CapRock Source customer newsletter:
A Closer Look at High Throughput Satellites,
Separating the Hype from the Real Benefits