Land Mobility

ST Engineering iDirect is the market leader in delivering superior ground infrastructure, modems, and solutions across the mobility sector. With our solutions we are enabling the growing number of land mobile applications that require VSAT connectivity with high performance, efficient, global coverage and bandwidth management, whether that’s in a car, on a train or enabling commerce through trucking or agriculture vehicles.   

As we look toward the future, a combination of technologies—new satellite constellations, flat panel antenna designs and intelligent ground infrastructure —must work together in a coordinated way to deliver the user experience that customers will expect. To enable high speed, broadband connectivity in land mobility markets requires a balance of performance, form factor and cost.  

Satellite connectivity can offer some unique capabilities to meet the connectivity needs on trains. It can support operational efficiency, with fleet management, tracking and condition monitoring, or improve ticketing, passenger engagement and passenger tracking. VSAT technologies will also enable passenger connectivity services such as on-board entertainment and internet connectivity for personal devices.  

VSAT provides an attractive solution when moving between urban and rural areas because it offers complete coverage across countries and regions and the availability to quickly deploy.

Coach/Bus 

VSAT-supported connectivity is the best option for customer entertainment on buses in operation around the world, especially for longer distance and intercity transport on roads and in regions that don’t have consistent connectivity. Broadband will strengthen operational efficiencies in safety and security, fleet management, telemetry and on–board diagnostics helping to extend the life of these vehicles. As the costs of VSAT technology and bandwidth become more attractive this market has great potential to benefit from satellite connectivity. 

Commercial Trucking 

Satellite communication already delivers fleet tracking and monitoring applications to major national and even international truck fleets. As new applications like video surveillance, fleet automation and driver safety applications increase data requirements more advanced satellite technologies like VSAT will better enable the trucking industry for future growth.  

Emergency Response 

Government and military vehicles require satellite connectivity to operate in difficult or hostile environments. When terrestrial or wireless communications have been destroyed or when organizations operate in areas or countries where the communications infrastructure does not exist, satellite is essential. First responders who manage rescue and relief efforts have an immediate requirement for basic voice and data connectivity to find and save people that are in life threatening situations.  

Connected Car 

VSAT technology will provide value to the connected car market that other wireless technologies cannot. Satellite is a great option for applications that are not latency sensitive but require broad coverage such as infotainment and distribution of software and firmware updates to the vehicle. The range and coverage of satellite make it a great complementary technology to cellular solutions being deployed. 

Many agriculture and mining operations take place away from major metropolitan areas in very low density areas. This doesn’t lessen their need for modern communications technologies and in many cases actually makes it more important. The operational efficiency of these sites and the increasingly complex pieces of equipment are driving connectivity. In order to improve yields through precision agriculture, companies are developing intelligent equipment to optimize production. The tracking of equipment and personnel at mine sites is improving worker safety and improving productivity as all companies look for new ways to optimize volume, cost and capital expenditures.

Bandwidth Efficiencies 

ST Engineering iDirect’s platforms feature DVB-S2 and DVB-S2X on the outbound and a choice between SCPC, MF-TDMA and Mx-DMA return link technologies on our Newtec Dialog product line or high performance Adaptive TDMA on iDirect Evolution and iDirect Velocity platforms. These advances give the service provider the power to offer a variety of network configurations from single to multiple service areas.   

Land mobility management  

ST Engineering iDirect has proven mobility solutions optimized for high-throughput satellites and HTS platforms plus system architecture for large-scale, multi-beam networks.  

Make-before-break handovers 

Re-establish the whole link quickly with fast reacquisition and minimal authentication steps.   

Flat-panel antennas 

ST Engineering iDirect is working with several flat-panel antenna manufacturers who are producing smaller, thinner form factor antennas. Our waveform technologies help mitigate common satellite interference and enable satellite transmission to fast moving remotes, while maintaining a reliable and efficient link.    

Advanced QoS  

Our Advanced QoS maximizes the value of a shared TDMA bandwidth pool for traffic prioritization, bandwidth management, and better SLA configuration.    

Automated Beam Switching (ABS)  

Integrated mobility management technologies enable Automated Beam Switching (ABS) that automatically connect to satellite beams for make-before-break hand-offs without the need for manual intervention.