[Satellite News 04-13-10] Cisco Systems aims to increase its role in the military satellite sector by shifting the focus of its space strategy to provide the ability to route IP traffic on satellites.
    Satellite News recently caught up with Greg Pelton, Cisco’s Internet Routing in Space (IRIS) general manager to discuss how the company can help governments around the world make the most of its space programs. 

Pelton: Today satellite is an important part of government networks but is not well integrated into the Everything over IP (EoIP) communications vision. Defense forces need to operate on a global scale, in locations and situations where terrestrial infrastructure may be absent or compromised. This means that satellite services are critical to being able to achieve the mission. The challenges going forward are how to seamlessly integrate satellite into the rest of the global IP network and how to deploy new capabilities in a timely and cost effective manner. This is where there is opportunity for greater collaboration between government and commercial industry.

Pelton: The traditional model of acquiring dedicated technology for government use and paying the entire costs of developing that technology is not working any longer. The government has shown a real desire to partner with industry and industry is responding. There will always be government specific requirements but it makes sense for the government to just pay for those capabilities and leverage commercial industry for the bulk of their requirements. This is a win-win for everyone involved.

Pelton: With our IRIS initiative, we have begun the transition of IP into satellites. IRIS provides a dedicated router onboard satellites. The satellite now becomes a service delivery point in the network. Services, security, policy and bandwidth are managed end-to-end and can be used on-demand, rather than pre-provisioned and potentially stranded as the mission needs change. IP and now IRIS represent fundamental changes to satellite networks and it has allowed Cisco to learn a lot more about our customers and their needs.
    The adoption of EoIP was a critical first step to leveraging commercial technology and leveraging the huge commercial investment in R&D. Hosted payloads are another important step that will enable a much more cost effective solution to meeting the government’s need for global, secure communications. Hosted payloads have much quicker time to orbit and lower costs than flying only dedicated satellites, and when used in combination with government-owned satellites can provide global coverage and seamless services. Key to this is what we call ‘converged space-ground networks’. Using IP as the common architectural framework allows terrestrial infrastructure, government satellites and government payloads hosted on commercial spacecraft to be seamlessly woven together into one network for the warfighter.

Pelton: Cisco is a networking company and our expertise is in designing networks and delivering the products and services to implement those networks. Along with our partners, we have a role to play in the implementation of a global, converged network for the government. In addition, our significant investment in R&D, which is over $4 billion, annually, can be leveraged by the government customer. This has a huge multiplier effect in delivering new capabilities more quickly and at much lower cost than through proprietary development programs.

Pelton: IP is the common language of all networks. Communications technologies are well adapted for the specific needs of their environment, whether it is wired or wireless. However over the last 15 years we have seen these technologies evolve to where the main objective is to support the delivery of IP communications and IP services. Content and services are all evolving to IP and the end users are consuming these services on IP capable devices, The role of the network then is to provide efficient, cost effective, high quality transport of these IP services to the user. Satellite networks are beginning to make this transition and it should accelerate over time. It is a very exciting time for the satellite industry.

Pelton: One of the biggest changes will be leveraging commercial satellites and hosted payloads. This is a fundamental business model change for the government and for industry. There is no recipe for making this work and we need to collaborate to find the right formula. The existing IRIS payload on Intelsat 14 is a good example of how industry and government can work together and should serve as a template for future hosted payloads.