[Satellite News 03-08-11] Cisco Systems launched its Internet Router in Space (IRIS) program on the Intelsat 14 satellite when the spacecraft was orbited in November 2009. 

    The router’s configuration, triggered by a development contract from the U.S. Department of Defense, was designed to merge communications received on various frequency bands and transmit them to multiple users and support network services for voice, video and data communications for the U.S. military from 315 degrees East over the Atlantic Ocean. An evaluation of the IRIS service by Cisco and the Pentagon was completed in April 2010, and now Cisco is looking to monetize the service.

    Satellite News spoke with Cisco IRIS General Manager Greg Pelton about how the service is being perceived now that it is less than two months away from its launch date in May through TCS and the potential it brings to the future role of satellite networking.   

Satellite News: What’s the key concept behind an IRIS-powered satellite network?

Pelton: The most important thing that we’re trying to achieve with IRIS is to move satellites from essentially being hardware devices passively relaying signals to becoming a key, software-driven part of the network. In doing this, we’ve basically taken the software that runs on the IP routers that are deployed today for millions of customers across various markets and put it on the satellite. 

    We developed this program because we think it’s the right time for the market. A few years ago, we found ourselves trying to prove to the satellite industry that this technology was real. IRIS presents all new concepts, even for Cisco. We had been doing this type of transition in other voice, video and data markets, but we hadn’t been through it in satellite, so we were all learning about the power of putting these services together and how could you implement them. Last fall, we started to see a change in how our potential customers reacted to IRIS. The government’s report on IRIS, which was published in August, convinced a lot of our customers that this was real and operational and had utility for end users.

Satellite News: How did the U.S. military evaluate IRIS in the report?

Pelton: The report I mentioned followed a four-month joint-capabilities technologies demonstration with the government that we finished at the end of April 2010. By all indications, it was very successful. They published the results in August, and the report was quite complimentary. IRIS proved to have real benefits for the warfighter. It improved joint-operations communications, collaborations, access to data and applications in mobile, fixed and flexible hybrid environments.

   It also was a big success from a mission perspective. After the government evaluation, we opened up the service to test with various commercial and government customers in order to get maximum exposure to the market and raise awareness. In the end, this is a commercial venture for Cisco, and we want to drive this vision of IP networking for satellite networks across the industry. We have seen very positive results from getting customers engaged with these tests. 

Satellite News: Did these engagements lead to your operating partnership with TCS in February?

Pelton: It goes back a little further than that. When we announced the service on IS-14 and scheduled a service launch, we had a number of customers and end-users come to us and express interest in the satellite’s position over the Atlantic with coverage over North America, South America, Africa and Europe. They wanted to be able to target the service to all of those different regions, but we hit a quandary because Cisco isn’t a service provider. We sell networks to service providers, but we aren’t in the satellite service business. 

    In October, we embarked on an initiative to transition IRIS from a demonstrator and a proof of concept to actually being a production service. To do that, we need to find the right partner. We went through a series of meetings and, potentially, due-diligence discussions with a bunch of established satellite service providers and eventually narrowed down on the ideal partner for this specific application on Intelsat 14. We formed our partnership with TCS because they have a strong background in both government and commercial satellite services and have good experience with IP networks. They knew the particular types of modems we were using and were already a strong Cisco partner, so all the stars were aligned.

Satellite News: Why did you describe the voice-over-IP demonstration you conducted over IS-14 in December as a technological breakthrough for satellite?

Pelton: If you look at the routers we have in common, enterprise branch offices, where you have 20 to 50 people connected back to their main office, they move packets of information back and forth to provide connectivity. They also provide a rich set of security functions: the ability to maintain VPNs, the ability separate corporate users from guests coming into the building;and the ability to allow certain users access to databases. You also have your phones plugged into a LAN, with your Ethernet ports running wirelessly. Typically what happens when a phone is picked up is that there is an IP PBX server back in the main office that routes the calls, connects the users, handles call forwarding and provides all the normal features. 

    When customers have a break in a connection to their main office, Cisco branch office routers can provide telephony features that can act like a PBX for the customer’s branch office. That same software is running on the router we have on IS-14. We also thought it would be neat if the satellite wasn’t just part of the network but also a host for these types of services, so we decided to pick a few applications out and see how they work. One of those applications was IP telephony. We call it “dial tone from space.” What we’re demonstrating is the ability to take phones and infrastructure from the ground and connect it to the satellite dish and, with no other network or call servers available, be able to route calls to the satellite and connect them to each other. It’s quite interesting when you provide that ability to emergency service users. If police, fire and national guard are all working on the scene of an earthquake where terrestrial infrastructure is down and there’s no power, they can talk to each other on two-way radios in a limited domain. But with IRIS capability on orbit, they can connect their phones to the satellite dish, along with their laptops and everything else and have the communication system and all the services ready to go. IRIS also provides a gateway to the Internet with a number of connectivity options. You could gateway from any location under the beam and we can route seamlessly throughout all those different environments. 

Satellite News: Does IRIS help make satellite bandwidth more efficient for operators?

Pelton: Absolutely. The reason IRIS can improve efficiency on the satellite is that you can start to aggregate, or take the total amount of bandwidth on the satellite, and make decisions on how to issue it independent of which users are trying to access the bandwidth. If you’re a satellite customer of Intelsat and you have a network of 10 terminals, you have access to a certain amount of bandwidth on a satellite. That bandwidth is dedicated to you as a user and your network. Whether you’re using it or not, you’re paying for it. At the same time, no one else can use it. 

Think of the user being a train on a track. Operators have 10 tracks where their trains can’t switch tracks or add any other trains on the track because that infrastructure is dedicated to specific trains. When you put IRIS in the mix, managing all the bandwidth as part of the network, those train tracks become an interstate highway, where I have 10 lanes and the ability to shift cars between them. If a lane is empty, I can put more cars in that lane to get them to their destination faster. My total throughput on the highway is a lot higher than what I have on the railway track. At the same time, if they need to use more than a lane, I can give them space in the other lanes as long as the other customers aren’t using it. So they can burst into the other lanes and make use of them and they can pay for that privilege. This is especially important for video and telepresence, which require much more bandwidth. IRIS give operators flexibility in their usage patterns. Your customers are happier and they can pay in different ways. You also open up your network for users who maybe wouldn’t use satellite before because they don’t need that type of bandwidth all the time. In a sense, operators can use IRIS to lower the barrier for adoption. 

Satellite News: How is your technology agreement with Astrium Services progressing?

Pelton: We’re jointly looking at what space routers would mean on their satellites and what IP networking and the type of architectures we bring mean to the satellite industry and the satellite networks where they are involved. It’s been very successful. The two companies have a common vision of the future, and we’ve completed the phase one of that agreement at the end of last year. We’re embarking on phase two now. We’re getting much more familiar with the business models around satellite networks that are converged IP networks. 

Satellite News: What are the next steps for the service launch?

Pelton: The next steps for us on Intelsat 14 are getting the production service operational, and we’re working closely with TCS on that now. We expect to be in service in May. It’s only a couple of months now when we’ll be able to put live customers on the system and, more importantly, when TCS will be able to charge for the service and make use of it.