[Satellite News 11-18-09] Satellite ground systems provider Integral Systems is planning to offer new solutions and service to deal with interference on satellites and hopes to be in position to start signing deals soon as a service provider to commercial and government customers, Bruno Dupas, president of Integral Systems Europe, told Satellite News. 
    Signal interference, which can result in lost bandwidth, degraded quality of service and, eventually, lost revenue, has been an area of interest for Integral’s development team for some time. The company has released interference detection and geolocation products such as satID, Sigmon, Monics and SAT-DSA in efforts to enable operators to analyze multiple signals occupying the same frequency space and provide alarms and measurements of the degree of interference occurring.
    In order to create a reputation as a service provider, Dupas said the company is changing its approach to customers. “Integral historically has not been dealing with the satellite platform but more the command and control platform. We are moving to provide more and more solutions with the satellite system as well as the payload,” he said.
    According to Dupas, Integral will use new business models to sell its upcoming interference products and services. “We have learned from everyone this year, that interference is a big deal. We hope by the time of Global MilSatCom 2010 we will be able to report on how successful we have been in providing these services to the U.S. military and number of other Armed Forces around the world. We are investing in the infrastructure to do it,” he said.
    Integral has committed to service expansion plans for the foreseeable future. “Looking down the road, we see an opportunity to provide the benefits of these products through a managed service business model for our customers who prefer to outsource this capability to reduce capital expenditures, free up their operations staff, and have immediate access to the technical experts in the issues of interference and geolocation,” he said.
    “We are going beyond just selling products and systems,” said Marshal Ward, Integral’s COO. “We are now looking to offer a full suite of what they (customers) want to have. We are going beyond just selling products and systems and are now looking to offer a full suite of what they want to have,” he said.
    As a result, Integral is targeting new customer bases. In the U.S. market, Integral is looking to market space situation awareness capabilities, initially directed towards civil and military customers, to the commercial sector. Ward said that space situational awareness is equally important across all sectors. “We currently have contracts with the U.S. Air Force. We are looking to expand things. Governments are constrained right now because of budgets. We are now looking to offer a more complete service capability,” he said.
    The company also is focusing on expanding its international presence. In the United Kingdom, Integral aims to provide its Earth Station Integrated Solutions (ESIS) capabilities to satellite operators, telecommunications providers, broadcasters, cable operators, content providers, government agencies and the military from its new operations facility, established in November.
    “Our new [U.K.] facility provides one-stop shopping for satellite control via our ESIS E turnkey ground systems solutions for all types of satellites systems from design and engineering, installation design, integration and testing, in-service maintenance support, to on-site field services,” said Dupas.