Connectivity in 2024

Cellular infrastructure has matured in 4G (LTE) to be able to offer upto gigabit (1000Mbps) connections to capable devices and of course this will evolve into 5G with promise of even greater bandwidth in key locations.  From a mobile/marine user perspective there will be further improvments to range possible with sub-6GHz 5G but current 4G LTE has already delivered the main range-winning gains if carefully coupled with the right antena, modem & installation methods for the application - A recent example was one of our 2020 Superyacht projects achieveing a sustained 25Mbps 25NM south of the Isle of Wight (midway to Cherbourg) on a single modem (vessel was equipped with a quad-modem solution so had the potential to have been delivering upto 100Mbps across the English channel)

VSAT uses satellites located above the Equator in a fixed orbital position to provide high throughput services in regional "footprints". Most VSAT providers can use multiple satellites to extend the range of the geographic coverage and some create global networks with many satellites making up a patchwork of coverage. C-band offers widest reach per satellite but lowest bandwidth, Ka-band has smaller beams providing highest bandwidth but suffers from lower link-margin meaning weather events have potential to disrupt connections, Ku-band is the most common operating frequency with goo balance of throughput & weather resilience. Currently ku-band services of upto 20Mbps are available.

Iridium's network utilises low-Earth-obiting satellites that pass overhead - upto 4 being visible at any one time in a location with good views to the horizon. The befnefit over VSAT is that connections ate the North & South poles is possible with true global coverage.

Ground terminal is handed over from satellite to satellite during normal operation even when stationary. Speeds of upto 700kbps are offered currently.

With Cellular offering great latency, speed & cost (in home network) using this as the goto connection makes sense for many applications, but when location, environment, user density reduces the useability of this option adding satellite to the mix is often advantageous or even essential. For fulltime maritme applications there may also be an argument to rely 100% on satellite but with VSAT offering low cost/MB & high bandwidth the ability to failover to Iridium is attractive for resilience, coverage & blockage perspectives. Belt & braces approach would be to include a hybrid solution of all 3 (or more).

Our Peplink routers (see Cellular) offer a highly adaptable & configurable way to manage multiple connections to optimise the services onboard