We all know that in today's world of totally depends on wireless communication technology, high definition television and global access to the internet, many people are unclear about the inherent advantages of satellite communications.
Why does the satellite communication continue to grow? When is satellite is the best solution? here is some basic quick look at some key advantages of satellite communication.
Advantages of satellite communication :
- Satellite communication services being so portable and are very easy to install and also have user-friendly as well
- The satellite communication services are very helpful for the people staying in a remote area
- The satellite communication services are very helpful for the department of defence where the people on the fields used the wired service every time
- This service provides wider bandwidth based on SCPC or MCPC allocation types
- It covers a wide area of the earth hence entire country or region can be covered with just one satellite
- It is used for mobile as well as wireless communication applications find at independent of location
- It also co-exists with terrestrial microwave line of sight communication system
- It is easy to install and manage the cost per VSAT site
- It does not incur much of costs per VSAT site
- It has a small fading margin on the order of about 3 Db
- It is easy to obtain service from one single provider and also uniform service is also available
- It is used for voice, data and any other information transmission. Satellite services can be interfaced with internet infrastructure to obtain internet service. It is also used as a GPS application
- It is used a wide variety of applications which include weather forecasting, aircraft, radio/TV, connecting remote area, gathering intelligence in the military, navigation of ships, etc
- LEO and MEO both satellite types have lower propagation delay and lower losses compare to GEO satellite
Disadvantages of satellite communication :
- The satellite has a life which is about 12-15 years. Due to this fact, another launch has to be planned before it becomes un-operational
- Satellite manufacturing requires more time. Moreover, satellite design and development requires a higher cost
- Satellite once launched require to be monitored and controlled on regular periods so that it remains in the orbit
- The redundant component is used in the network design. This ensures more cost in the installation phase
Advantages of satellite communication over terrestrial communications :
- Terrestrial communication is a point to point whereas satellite communication is a point to multipoint approach
- Satellite is mainly wide-area broadcast media as transmitter antenna may be designed to provide signals to service areas as small as a city or as large as a country
- The satellite costs are independent of distance whereas the terrestrial network costs time cost is proportional to the distance
- Relatively fast installation. Once the satellite is in position, earth station can be installed and communication can be established in day or hours. But terrestrial circuits require time-consuming installations
- Mobile communication is easy to achieve using satellite communication because of its broader coverage area and its flexibility in connecting mobile vehicles
- Satellites have an average low operating cost. Manufacturing of satellites expensive but after that, it would operate typically for years
- The satellite itself is a single repeater. For terrestrial links, antennas are located at a specific height to overcome obstacles and also repeaters are to be used in between the links to compensate for path losses
- Satellite systems can provide coverage to remote places where the terrestrial system fails.
- In the case of LEO/MEO, a large number of satellites are needed to cover the radius of the earth. Moreover, visibility from the earth is very short duration which requires fast satellite to satellite handover. This makes the system very complex
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