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The European Space Agency (ESA) has chosen satcom specialist neXat to lead a new €1.5m (£1.28bn) project that aims to create an automated satellite backup (failover) for when submarine fibre optic networks suffer outages (cable breaks). The new system will be supported by Telesat’s future Lightspeed constellation of ultafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit.
The idea of using satellite as a backup for such connections is nothing new, although the extremely high data capacities of modern subsea fibre lines often meant that this could only be done to an extremely limited degree. Not to mention the high increase in latency times, which were a serious performance impediment via older satellites in higher orbits (GEO).
The reality today is that satellite backup tends to be less of an essential requirement, due to the above performance caveats and the fact that it’s often better to just relay traffic across alternative fibre routes. Nevertheless, situations still arise where such a capability would be desirable (e.g. not every location or service has access to alternative subsea fibres), which is a gap that the new project aims to fill.