We are living in unprecedented times. The reality of the climate change emergency is becoming apparent. We are seeing more natural disasters than ever before, and disasters on a larger scale. Natural disasters bring devastation to communities around the world.

When these disasters happen, a quick and efficient response, particularly when it comes to restoring communications, could mean the difference between life and death. It is also vital in enabling emergency responders to start their recovery efforts.

When terrestrial networks are destroyed in the aftermath of a disaster, satellite systems can rapidly restore communication lines. SES has been providing the connectivity for disaster response for decades, bringing the benefits of satellite technology to help governments and emergency responders. In recent times, as the nature of climate emergencies has changed and as satellite technology has progressed, SES’s approach to disaster communications has changed.

Governments are increasingly turning to satellite operators like SES to help them prepare for disasters, says Christophe Fondin, Vice President, Product Management, Enterprise & Mobility for SES.

“Over the years, we have been able to deliver solutions that have actually saved lives and helped the communities in the restoration of communications,” Fondin says. “Even if one had not envisioned satellite as a way to respond to a disaster in the past, now there is a common understanding that these solutions are easier, more reliable, and faster. Better preparedness is always the best scenario. The ability to deliver these solutions as easily and as fast as possible is key.”

Fondin believes expectations have changed dramatically here as the tech has progressed. Telco-grade solutions are now a vital part of SES’s armory. When a satellite operator such as SES deploys solutions, it has to seamlessly integrate with the local telco, with the subscriber devices and be able to be compatible with the cloud part and the digital migrations that have taken place. “When we deploy, almost irrespective of the environment we are in, we are compatible with a cloud solution, a private 5G solution,” he says.

“The standards have to be adopted to match the backhaul and the restoration of service being deployed. The fact we have telco-grade solutions allows us to seamlessly integrate with different types of standards as well as the infrastructure of the telco in the region,” adds Fondin.

The Right Solution for the Scenario

SES can work with governments and emergency responders in a number of different ways. The operator offers preparedness solutions, as well as more reactive solutions. The preparedness response is about pre-set solutions that are pre-installed and ready to go.

In terms of rapid response, SES has the ability to move capacity where needed. This is one of the key characteristics which allows the operator to re-allocate capacity in order to create very small or large networks on-demand.

Fondin says the majority of SES’s response support and services is deployable connectivity — a quick-to-deploy infrastructure to provide temporary recovery services and response. Improved terrestrial antennas allow SES to deploy service without setting up large gateways in advance. While governments and aid organizations don’t know when a disaster will occur, instant infrastructure allows for high throughput on demand, at the time an event takes place.

SES is able to harness the power of a multi-orbit approach to bring a number of benefits to governments/emergency responders with its O3b and O3b mPOWER Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) constellation. Fondin says each orbit and connectivity solutions have different attributes within the fabric of satellite connectivity.

“You go from always-on solutions that are deployed in a very fast manner, but don’t have a high throughput or have SLAs associated with it. But you also have very high throughput solutions that are able to restore complete fiber-like connectivity to vast populations and telco grade solutions,” he says. “In between, you have solutions that do not have to rely on grid power at all and are able to be deployed on the fly with instant networks. They seamlessly work with each other. I expect these multi orbit solutions to play a role on their own merit, but to also be an orchestrated solution.”

MEO is important for its high visibility and wide angle of view, high altitude, low latency and high throughput, Fondin says. It allows SES to initiate very high throughput networks on demand and across very large areas. It also means that SES is able to have telco-grade standards and high SLAs, which has been vital in its partnerships with the telco community.

“The ability to create gigabits per second throughputs with low latency is the unique aspect that MEO and mPOWER can bring. It brings a flexibility of allocation and allows for different scenarios in how you are going to use this particular connectivity capability,” he says.

Real-World Examples With Cloud Providers

As well as a layered multi-orbit approach, SES is also partnering with cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft to add extra layers to its offerings here. Sergy Mummert, Senior Vice President, Global Cloud & Strategic Partnerships, SES highlighted a couple of examples where satellite and cloud tech worked in unison to provide a response in these areas.

In 2022, Hurricane Ian hit southwest Florida with 150-mph winds. In the aftermath of the storm, SES Space & Defense, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES serving U.S. Government customers, and systems integrator SimbaCom worked with AWS to establish rapid connectivity in support of the AWS Disaster Response program.

In the absence of reliable ground connectivity systems due to the impact of the hurricane, SES’s O3b MEO solution provided fiber-like communications to state agencies, first responders, and residents. SES helped connect insurance claim processing centers in Fort Myers and Port Charlotte, and provided connectivity to aid distribution centers such as the Family Initiative in Cape Coral; Community Cooperative in Lee County; and Abuse Counseling & Treatment center in Fort Myers.

“AWS deployed our service at logistics centers where they were helping relief efforts as well as government offices that were processing claims and needed immediate support. This is a great example of where a cloud player wanted to use our service. We were connected through our gateway to their AWS cloud,” says Mummert.

SES also works with Microsoft and its Azure cloud services and solutions. Mummert highlighted a collaboration in Taiwan where Microsoft worked alongside SES in a demonstration to the government in Taiwan to show a common infrastructure in the event that networks go down after an earthquake.

“We put a 5G bubble on a vehicle. It provided a connectivity fabric for all types of devices to sync. It was an application-based solution, and we were part of that infrastructure. SES’s MEO service was used for the backhaul, and it went back to Azure for the application. These are examples where satcom and cloud are integrated,” Mummert says.

Mummert says MEO services are now being considered for core or edge cloud infrastructure. “Everyone would have assumed we were just going to be in remote areas, on the ocean and in the air. No one would think satcom would be part of a resiliency architecture for core infrastructure where fiber is available,” he says.

SES upgraded its applications, workflows, and processes to better leverage the capability and compute of the cloud.

“I think in general the thinking about cloud, its ease to adopt, the ease to consume, the ease to implement. You can start quickly and get moving and then iterate. That type of agility in the cloud model is what we are trying to bring to satcom.”

Working with a cloud provider enables the ability to optimize the experience and improve performance. Providing just a connectivity pipe and hoping that everything works is one model, but SES takes it much farther, he says.

“You can show up with an end-to-end solution that you understand the applications, the way the response is going to be coordinated, where the applications are present to perform at a higher level, so working with cloud players that are hosting these applications, understanding where they have the application present and optimizing it for a response,” he says. “So, some of that proactive work is really where they see the difference. Otherwise you just end up with connectivity and the internet and you hope it kind of holds.”

What’s Next in the Disaster Recovery Market

It is clear that satellite is becoming a more important part of the overall ecosystem when dealing with disaster recovery. Governments and emergency responders have come to appreciate how the developments in satellite tech can play a key role here.

Moving forward, Fondin believes there will be an increased appetite for small nimble solutions that can be put in a suitcase and deployed for very localized connectivity on-demand when a disaster occurs. He talks of a reliance on highly integrated solutions to recreate footprints or the 5G bubble and the “instantization” of services on-demand.

“The disaster recovery industry will want to adopt small, very fast deployments to provide some minimum level of connectivity,” Fondin says. “Secondly, there will be a need and expectation to restore a level of performance similar to what existed before these disasters came along.”

Direct-to-Device is another interesting new component of this. These services could be a welcome addition to emergency response scenarios as individual subscribers will have access to connectivity solutions.

He adds, “D2D will augment the solutions and tools that one needs to take into account when responding to an individual event. So, individual subscriber connectivity, small footprints on the fly, as well as full restoration of network grade fully digitalized and cloud compatible deployments are likely to be part and parcel of disaster recovery missions and scenarios. We will embed these solutions either providing themselves or integrating them as needed as part of the telco fabric.”

For SES, it is all about enhancing its ability to orchestrate different types of satellite solutions, no matter their performance, attributes and characteristics, and embed them in a hybrid or mixed way to different programs or disaster response scenarios.

“Each solution will have different attributes and respond in different ways,” Fondin says. “But together, we will have a faster way to provide an enhanced response as quickly as possible. We will invest further in space assets but also in how we orchestrate these solutions.”