From left: Roly Rigual and Daniel Gizinski. Photo: Comtech

Comtech recently released its new portfolio of Digital Common Ground (DCG) modems that the company says will enable digitized, hybrid satellite network architectures. Given the conversations around multi-orbit in our industry, this is a new generation of Comtech’s product lines with access to multi-orbit capabilities across commercial and purpose-built networks, building on a history as one of the first providers of multi-orbit capability in the industry. It is also one of the first modem lines to be Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability (DIFI) compliant.

Via Satellite spoke to Daniel Gizinski, president and chief strategy officer, and, Roly Rigual, executive vice president of Sales and Business Development about how the new DCG product line is poised to make an impact in both the commercial and government markets.

VIA SATELLITE: Comtech recently released a new portfolio of Digital Common Ground (DCG) modems that you believe will supercharge digitized, hybrid satellite network architectures. Why was this such an important release for the company?

Rigual: This is a big milestone moment both for the government and the commercial markets. Our desire was to come out with a high-level system that provides assured resilience and flexibility in a package that could be used in a variety of ways—from  portable, transportable, systems to the teleport. I believe it will be a groundbreaking architecture that will not only be used in these modems but in future systems we develop for our partners. 

VIA SATELLITE: How does the release of these modems shift the conversation for defense customers? What are the benefits for defense customers to bring these kinds of modems into their network? 

Gizinski: There are a couple of things that are noteworthy about this release. The first is we have spent quite a bit of time in advance of the public announcement working closely with a number of customers, proving out the technology, demonstrating that it works, and proving the value that is created with these all-new digital satellite architectures. We have been able to show the ability to be flexible, scalable, and operate in a highly automated network that allows them to roam across multiple orbits, multiple networks, and across multiple satellite constellations. It feeds in to a direct alignment to modernization initiatives. Whether that is the Commercial Space Integration Strategy or the Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) initiatives, a software-defined core architecture with broad network flexibility built in, is directly designed to support customer demands and requirements aligned with critical U.S. DoD and Coalition modernization initiatives.

VIA SATELLITE: What issues drove the development of the DCG modem product line? How are you working to solve your customers’ challenges? 

Gizinski: We spent a lot of time at the outset listening to our customers real problems and getting a crisp understanding of both the problems of today, and the problems they expect to have in the near future. What we heard is the drive for flexibility, scalability, adaptability. Our customers have seen the rate of change over the last five years, and we all expect the pace of change is only going to increase.

We heard customers say they can’t afford to be limited to just what is available today, and that they need to have the ability to flex and adapt to what is coming in the future. There are a couple of interesting things that got baked into this, both with the digital architecture, and with what we refer to as ultra-wide instantaneous bandwidth which allows for a single software-defined modem platform to support the waveforms that are required across a broad range of satellite constellations.

Rigual: We have a very strong relationship with our end customers. We have had a lot of collaborative meetings that led to the development of these new DCG modems. During those meetings, our end customers, and specifically the government and defense partners we deal with regularly, expressed their concern about maintaining critical communication links in this new era of near peer adversaries. I have said this a number of times recently, but it has been a long time since the U.S. DoD has had to fight to get to the fight. We no longer enjoy an asymmetrical technological advantage between ourselves and our adversaries as we have had over the last few decades. The technological capability gap between the U.S. and our adversaries is much narrower in the new world we are in today. That collaboration and ensuring we are meeting the requirements of our customers is a key part in what drove development of the DCG modem product line.

VIA SATELLITE: It is one thing to release new technology such as this portfolio of DCG Modems, it is another for this to translate into commercial deals. What kind of early momentum do you have in terms of contracts? What do you think the deal flow will look like over the next years?

Gizinski: We are excited about the rapid rate of adoption that we have seen. We can point to multiple satellite operators that have entered into contracts with Comtech that involve the delivery of these next generation modem platforms. We have orders from terminal integrators and even directly from U.S. DoD service components. It speaks to the product’s capability—it is fit for purpose against these customer requirements where we have seen such a rapid adoption, even in a time of general uncertainty within the industry. 

VIA SATELLITE: It seems players like Comtech are changing their focus when dealing with their major customers, so rather than focusing on just the hardware, taking a more holistic approach to providing answers to key questions. Would you agree with this?

Gizinski: There are a few things that are true there. We have been in the business of supporting satellite customers and satellite operators for over 50 years at this point. We have consistently shown a unique ability to anticipate market trends and lean forward into some of these changes as they are happening. We recognize a lot of our customers have shifted in terms of what they want to buy. One of the things that is interesting to point out is the engagements we have with most of the customers that are already leaning in on these next generation platforms don’t all look the same. 10 to 15 years ago, we might have had all of those transactions look like a pure CapEx model. We now have a variety of deal types and deal structures we have been able to adopt and that is a hallmark of successful companies is that they are able to be flexible and adaptable and work within customer needs and requirements in a way that best fits their business case.

VIA SATELLITE: Do you think the way customers acquire technology from companies like Comtech is undergoing a dramatic shift?

Rigual: They are definitely moving away from buying transponders full of satellite capacity. They want end-to-end solutions. There is a lot of integration and vertical integration going on in the industry. There is a lot of consolidation of different companies. For them to accomplish their tasks from an economic perspective, they definitely need to work with vendors like Comtech to get end-to-end solutions and to focus on their mission and their business, and not be bogged down by these piecemeal boxy solutions. That is changing how they look to companies like Comtech to acquire the technology to accomplish those things. 

VIA SATELLITE: What does Comtech’s technology roadmap look like when it comes to multi-orbit solutions and developing a more holistic set of solutions for key customers?

Gizinski: Multi-orbit is a term that gets thrown around quite a lot. One of the things we are excited about is we have been involved in multi-orbit satellite operations for a long-time supporting customers using MEO and LEO in addition to GEO.

In May, we announced some work with Eutelsat OneWeb to enable the delivery of LEO satellite connectivity in Antarctica. We see the historical legacy satellite operators are leaning heavily on a multi-orbit strategy, and a big part of that becomes figuring out how those offerings become transparent to a customer. It comes down to a few key things and obviously the right pieces of hardware need to be in place, the right flexibility needs to be baked into the network, whether that is network orchestration, automation, managing demand flow across multiple different orbits, multiple different ground stations. It is contingent on having that all digital infrastructure in place alongside all of the supporting connecting tissue on the orchestration side.

VIA SATELLITE: What kind of use cases do you see for this product line? What is the balance between commercial and defense?

Rigual: When it comes to the merger of commercial and defense, we took great pains to align ourselves with some of these modernization initiatives that are out there, such as the Defense Commercial Space Integration Strategy. We don’t go into a dark room and decide that “this would be cool to build.” We make extensive attempts to align ourselves with the requirements and needs of our partners. In this case, the Commercial Space Integration Strategy has been out there for a little while now. That has been a big part of it. 

VIA SATELLITE: You announced a new deal with SES Space & Defense to supply modems for O3b mPOWER. Do you believe this was a key early validation of your approach and technology here?

Rigual: Absolutely. Comtech has a large portfolio of defense technologies widely deployed today, and our recent contract with SES to add Comtech’s SLM 5650B with mPOWER capabilities continues to validate our success. We have our next generation modems to follow, and we were successful in getting this award because it aligns strongly with SES’s roadmap and with what they see as their vision of the future. That is a big part of a win like this.  Our larger install base in the defense and security world, and the new DCG technology we recently announced is not only going to augment that, but it will allow these customers to continue to evolve over time and making adding additional capabilities easier.

VIA SATELLITE: Where are you in terms of developing network orchestration software to help customers move data between networks?

Gizinski: At a high level, there are a number of initiatives going on with both network and data orchestration. Broadly, whether it is the DoD’s Zero Trust architecture that has been aggressively moved forward with a big part of the goal being allowing the movement of data across multiple networks while controlling security appropriately. There is a tremendous amount of focus. The position that we are in today is that we have a number of customers who are at different points along that curve. We have solutions that we use that are developed in-house, and we have solutions where we work with a variety of different partners. It comes to what the customers’ needs are, where they are in that maturity curve, and then bringing something forward that addressed their most pressing needs. 

VIA SATELLITE: We have seen fairly dramatic industry consolidation – SES/Intelsat, Viasat/Inmarsat, Eutelsat/OneWeb, as well as the impact of LEO only players such as Starlink. What would you say the impact on this is on a company like Comtech?

Gizinski: The consolidation of what represents a large portion of the equipment hardware manufacturers customer base is an interesting industry dynamic. There is a high probability that this consolidation continues and perhaps even accelerates into the future, something we view as a positive trend. We continue to work closely with these customers, continue to find ourselves designed into their architectures, and will continue to support their business needs in the future. Ultimately, as some of the commercial operators consolidate, we see a number of new government constellations bought online. Everything from the Protected Tactical Satcom (PTS) program as well as the SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). There is a tremendous amount of excitement happening on the space side and we are excited to continue to play a major part in what the future architecture looks like.

VIA SATELLITE: What would represent a successful year for Comtech as regards its DCG product line, platform and portfolio?

Gizinski: Success for us looks a lot like customers that are pleased with the fieldings and deployments. We have shown strong demand already with a couple of anchor customers. We continue to see accelerated adoption of the platforms. We are invested in seeing those customers continue to field the technology. There are meaningful business cases which it is assisting. We want to continue to push for that level of customer success. We understand there is a level of pressure amongst some of the legacy operators and some of the new up-and-coming operators to find ways to be more efficient and more flexible to better address their customer needs. Success for us is helping our customers achieve their goals.