Lockheed Martin-Built A2100 Satellite Fleet Achieves 200 Years In Orbit

AMC-15, our permanent new home is the same class of satellite as this LM story. Pretty impressive!

Thomas William

VP Partner Solutions

Broadband in a Box

1302 Clear Springs Trace

Louisville Kentucky 40223

Direct: (502) 426.2067

Toll Free: (800) 761.9149

Fax: (502) 515.3710

Email: tomw@bbinabox.com
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The Lockheed Martin A2100 geosynchronous spacecraft series is designed to meet a wide variety of telecommunications needs including Ka-band broadband and broadcast services, fixed satellite services in C-band and Ku-band, high-power direct broadcast services using the Ku-band frequency spectrum and mobile satellite services using UHF, L-band, and S-band payloads.

by Staff Writers
Newtown PA (SPX) Feb 14, 2008
Lockheed Martin's A2100 communications satellite fleet recently achieved a major milestone by accumulating 200 years of successful in-orbit operations. The A2100 satellite series, designed and manufactured at Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems (LMCSS), currently consists of 34 satellites featuring 1254 transponders with an accumulated lifetime of over 7800 years of successful operations in orbit.

The first A2100 satellite, AMC-1, was launched Sept. 8, 1996 for SES AMERICOM. SIRIUS 4, the most recent A2100 spacecraft, was successfully launched on Nov. 18, 2007 for SES SIRIUS.

Upcoming launches include AMC-14 for SES AMERICOM in mid-March and VINASAT-1, built for Vietnamese Posts and Telecommunications Group, in April. AMC-14 will carry a demonstration active phased array (APA) payload consisting of a receive mode APA antenna, allowing customers enhanced flexibility on orbit. VINASAT-1 represents the first ever spacecraft procurement by the nation of Vietnam.

"We are enormously proud of the impressive reliability track record of our A2100 satellite," said Vice President and General Manager Marshall Byrd. "This important milestone is the result of our team's focus and determination to successfully execute on each and every individual program for our customers. In addition, by adopting a deliberately evolutionary approach to introducing new technology, we can maintain a very low risk to the overall spacecraft mission."

Throughout its nearly 50-year history, LMCSS has built 94 communications geostationary earth orbit satellites which have achieved a total of 779 in-orbit years. In 2007, LMCSS delivered the 32nd, 33rd and 34th A2100 spacecraft to satellite operators around the world: ASTRA 1L, aboard an Ariane 5 ECA on May 3; BSAT-3a, lifted into orbit Aug. 14 also aboard an Ariane 5 ECA; and SIRIUS 4, launched aboard an International Launch Services Proton launch vehicle.

The Lockheed Martin A2100 geosynchronous spacecraft series is designed to meet a wide variety of telecommunications needs including Ka-band broadband and broadcast services, fixed satellite services in C-band and Ku-band, high-power direct broadcast services using the Ku-band frequency spectrum and mobile satellite services using UHF, L-band, and S-band payloads.

The A2100's modular design features a reduction in parts, simplified construction, increased on-orbit reliability and reduced weight and cost.

The A2100 spacecraft design accommodates a large range of payloads. This design modularity enables the A2100 spacecraft to be configured for a wide variety of missions in addition to communication. The A2100 serves as the platform for critical Lockheed Martin government communications programs such as the Advanced Extremely High Frequency program and Mobile User Objective System.

The A2100 platform design has been adapted for geostationary earth orbit (GEO)-based earth observing missions and is currently baselined for Lockheed Martin's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite Series-R (GOES-R) proposal. The A2100 platform also is the foundation for Lockheed Martin's Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) offering for the U.S. Government.

[source]

The new finished logos Take #1

What do you all think? I shouted almost at the top of my lungs today when I opened the PDF file and saw our new logo coming to fruition. I'm totally blown away and look forward to your critiques. It can only get better, with your help. Thanks in advance...Thomas

AMC-15 Launches a New Era in Broadband Communications (2004 SpaceFlight Now Report)

While Broadband in a Box's international open standard DVB-S2 (MP4) last mile wholesale broadband solution designed especially for for Telco's, ISP's and WISP's isn't rocket science , it all started with rocket science. Here's a report from our friends at SpaceFlight Now on the launch of our new dedicated home AMC-15 on October 15, 2004.

Thomas William

VP Partner Solutions

Broadband in a Box

1302 Clear Springs Trace

Louisville Kentucky 40223

Direct: (502) 426.2067

Toll Free:    (800) 761.9149

Fax:             (502) 515.3710

Email:           tomw@bbinabox.com
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The AMERICOM 15 communications spacecraft that will broadcast direct-to-home entertainment and broadband services across the U.S. was successfully launched aboard a commercial Russian Proton rocket today.

The Proton rocket lifts off with AMC 15. Photo: ILS

The mission began at 2123 GMT (5:23 p.m. EDT) Thursday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahstan. After the Proton's lower three stages completed their firings, the Breeze M upper stage carried out a trio of engine burns during the evening and then deployed the 8,900-pound craft into geosynchronous transfer orbit at 0418 GMT (12:18 a.m. EDT) to conclude the seven-hour ascent.

The AMC 15 satellite will maneuver itself into geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above Earth and undergo a testing period starting October 23 from an orbital spot over the equator at 136 degrees West longitude. The craft will reach its operational destination at 105 degrees West longitude and enter service in eight weeks.

Built by Lockheed Martin, the hybrid Ku/Ka-band satellite will be operated by SES AMERICOM of Princeton, New Jersey, under the AMERICOM2Home system banner. The prime customer of AMC 15 is EchoStar's DISH Network. Millions across America subscribe to DISH for television and music programming received via small satellite dishes.

"The AMC 15 spacecraft has a very important mission as the first satellite we have committed to EchoStar Communications Corp. and its DISH Network satellite TV service ... this really puts our AMERICOM2Home initiative on the map as a robust platform provider for the U.S. direct-to-home industry," said Bryan McGuirk, senior vice president of media services at SES AMERICOM.

SES AMERICOM said it worked closely with EchoStar on the technical design of the spacecraft to ensure complete compatibility with the existing and future services on DISH.

AMC 15 is one of America's first operating Ka-band payloads, carrying 12 spot beams that will allow DISH to expand its offerings. The satellite also includes 24 Ku-band transponders.

"AMC 15 is the eleventh A2100 (model satellite) we have successfully delivered for SES AMERICOM; the third of four in 2004," said Ted Gavrilis, president of Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems. "We are proud of our relationship with AMERICOM, considered one of the most demanding spacecraft operators in the industry, and especially look forward to the activation of AMC 15's Ka-band payload, the first major commercial Ka-band operation in the United States."

The AMC 15 satellite is hoisted in the cleanroom for mating with the Breeze M upper stage. Photo: ILS

It was the year's fourth commercial Proton rocket mission under the control of International Launch Services. ILS globally markets Proton and American Atlas rockets. The U.S.-based firm has conducted nine missions in 2004 using its two rocket families.

"This Proton/Breeze M launch was picture-perfect in the darkened skies over Kazakhstan, and on spec as we monitored every stage," said Dany Harel, SES AMERICOM vice president for satellite and space systems. "We thank the ILS team for delivering AMC 15 into transfer orbit. Now we and our Lockheed Martin spacecraft partners can get the satellite ready for service to our customer, EchoStar, by December."

"We thank SES AMERICOM for launching again with ILS," Mark Albrecht, the president of ILS, said at the conclusion of today's mission. "I'm proud of our long-standing relationship with AMERICOM and its parent company, SES GLOBAL. And it's good to be involved with EchoStar again as well, which has launched several dedicated satellites with ILS before teaming with SES AMERICOM on AMC 15."

The next ILS Proton flight is scheduled for December 9 when the WORLDSAT 2 communications satellite is deployed over the Atlantic to serve the Americas, Europe and Africa. It will mark the fourth of five launches of SES spacecraft on ILS vehicles this year, following AMC 10 and 11 on Atlas rockets and tonight's AMC 15. The fifth will be AMC 16 aboard an Atlas 5 on December 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: October 15, 2004

New Logo #2

EarthLink returns to dial-up for its future

With over 10+ Million (possibility 20+ million) homes and businesses still left un-served in last mile DMA's, the dialup business is going to remain vibrant for years and years, until terrestrial broadband providers build their terrestrial DSL, FTTH, wireless, etc. infrastructures out to them.

This all reminds me of how the analog C-band satellite television industry was considered 'dead' back in 1994, when Ku-band mini-dish players like PrimeStar, DirecTV and DishNet started. Today C-band technology is still a reliable viable and cost effective solution for several hundred thousand homes and businesses.

How long will Dial-up survive? 10 years? 15 years?

Thomas William

VP Partner Solutions

Broadband in a Box

1302 Clear Springs Trace

Louisville Kentucky 40223

Direct: (502) 426.2067

Toll Free: (800) 761.9149

Fax: (502) 515.3710

Email: tomw@bbinabox.com

# # # # #

By KRISTI E. SWARTZ
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/28/08

EarthLink invested for years in potential replacements for its once-thriving dial-up Internet business: a mobile phone service aimed at teens, citywide wireless high-speed Internet and broadband that runs over utility power lines.

None of them worked.

Plagued by an eroding customer base, EarthLink has managed to stay afloat — and even turn a profit in the first quarter after losing $135 million in 2007 — by slashing its work force in half and abandoning two failed ventures. Now, it's crunch time. CEO Rolla Huff is banking the company's future on the very thing that has caused trouble in the first place: dial-up.

Hello?

Huff has been saying for months he is serious. He has argued that he can't stop losing customers to broadband but what he can do is buy dial-up subscribers from other companies that don't want them and build a critical mass.

It's unclear whether that strategy will work.

"The old core Internet service provider business that was central to EarthLink and AOL is really fading away and drying up," said Lydia Leong, an analyst for Gartner, an information technology research company in Stamford, Conn. "They are a company with declining fare and declining brand equity."

EarthLink is scheduled to release its second-quarter earnings Tuesday . Executives declined to be interviewed saying the company was in a quiet period and could not speak to the media ahead of the earnings announcement. The company made a small profit of $54.4 million during the first quarter, and executives raised their full-year forecast to between $245 million and $260 million.

Analysts are hoping for some answers Tuesday on EarthLink's strategy for the long haul.

"What's the long-term solution to the challenging business model? I don't think they have figured it out, and it may not exist," said Mike Paxton, an analyst with In-Stat, a technology and communications market research firm based in Scottsdale, Ariz. "Relying solely on dial-up Internet access is not a good story for their customers, their employees or Wall Street."

A recent addition to EarthLink's board may provide a clue about the company's intentions: telecom industry veteran M. Wayne Wisehart has been either chief financial officer or CEO of a number of phone, wireless or Internet business that eventually were bought by larger companies, giving him plenty of experience in navigating through an acquisition.

Though troubled companies are often prey for prospective buyers, analysts said none would probably be interested and that EarthLink has time to pursue the purchases Huff seeks.

"We see EarthLink as an acquirer," said Scott Kessler, an analyst with Standard & Poor's in New York. "If you think about what they've done, they've basically gotten out of these other businesses and have done that so they can focus on dial-up."

EarthLink rose and fell with the Internet boom, but while major telecom companies such as AT&T and Comcast were throwing money into high-speed Internet, the company tried branching out into other ventures as a way to survive. It dabbled in Internet telephony, partnered with Duke Power to launch broadband over power lines, or BPL, on a trial basis and paired up with satellite TV providers DISH and DirecTV to market its Internet services.

Then EarthLink and SK Telecom invested about $440 million into Helio, a wireless company aimed at teens, with the hopes of capturing 3 million subscribers by 2010. Virgin Mobile bought the joint venture — and its 170,000 customers — in June for about $39 million in stock.

The company shut down another troubled venture, a municipal wireless network in Philadelphia, one month before. The $17 million effort that was part of a larger nationwide project, which is being phased out.

During EarthLink's first-quarter conference call in April with analysts, Huff acknowledged that while the company continues to lose dial-up subscribers, he sees a "long and profitable tale" in that market by buying those customers from other companies.

Huff was optimistic, telling investors that he considers such acquisitions one of EarthLink's core competencies. In fact the company has bought more than 120 groups of dial-up Internet subscribers since 1999.

During the conference call he said there is a "constant list of people that we are talking to on a consistent basis," but would not give any names. Analysts, including Jim Friedland at Cowen & Co., say the ones being courted are Time Warner's AOL and Microsoft's MSN.

Huff told analysts that AOL, MSN and United Online each have to determine how important the dial-up business is to them.

"At some point, scale will matter as much to them as it does to us," Huff said. "And we're better positioned all around to be that consolidator. We're going to try really hard to continue to acquire dial-up customers. We just want to make sure we're going to make money off of them."

Friedland, an analyst with Cowen & Co., is skeptical.

"We continue to believe that the company's dial-up base, which generates the majority of its (earnings), will decline to zero in five to six years," he wrote in a research note based on the company's first-quarter earnings.

Other analysts are less dramatic.

"While dial-up Internet access is a dying business, it is hardly a dead business," Kessler said. Companies such as EarthLink, however, have to work hard at maintaining a critical mass of customers to stay profitable, he said.

Huff has said he is bullish about the company's long-term prospects.

"I believe we can make our company better than it is today," he told analysts.

[source]

Dial-Up Internet Isn't Going Away--For Now

Here's a little update on the state of the diaup industry from our friends at PCWorld.com, enjoy!

Thomas William

VP Partner Solutions

Broadband in a Box

1302 Clear Springs Trace

Louisville Kentucky 40223

Direct: (502) 426.2067

Toll Free: (800) 761.9149

Fax: (502) 515.3710

Email: tomw@bbinabox.com

# # # #

Virtually every Internet service provider uses dial-up networking to connect individuals to the Internet. Most recognizable are the larger, national information services and ISPs. Companies such as America Online, EarthLink, AT&T WorldNet, and MSN have become household names in the past ten years, and offer nearly universal service in the United States (and often provide international access as well). Each of the big guns offers its own brand of interface, built on dial-up networking, with varying levels of customization and proprietary features.

But there are often a few gotchas if you use an information service's customized interface: Some limit the user's access to Internet resources that are not part of the service's offerings. America Online, for instance, boasts the greatest number of subscribers among ISPs and information services. AOL offers those subscribers a wide range of clubs, user groups, and file libraries. There's so much to do that many AOL subscribers know only how to use those features and services exclusively within AOL's borders, rendering them unable to "leave the nest," so to speak.

On the other hand, more and more subscribers would prefer to use such subscriptions only to connect to the Internet. You can, for instance, simply use AOL as an ISP, but few users do that.

Small ISPs Provide Big Service

Smaller, local ISPs frequently offer more competitive rates, less restrictive interfaces, and a different selection (and usually a higher standard) of service options. "Local," though, doesn't necessarily mean their use is geographically limited. Often they use the same "head-end" network, such as the GRIC Alliance, as the largest providers do, and this can give local ISPs nationwide (or even worldwide) access numbers. EarthLink and MSN, for example, use the same dialing network; so can the little ISPs with big aspirations.

There are free Internet service providers, too, which offer basic connections through their user interface. The trend has been for the free ISPs to serve up a lot of ads in that interface, and little or no tech support if something goes wrong. More recently, these services have begun charging fees for services.

Rosy Future for Dial-Up Networking

Dial-up networking is a mature technology; over the past few years, incremental technology improvements have improved performance, but not by a significant amount. The last major improvement in dial-up was the release of the V.90 standard, which allowed modems that used either of two previously incompatible standards to connect to each other. As a result, most modems are able to connect at or near their rated maximum of 56 kbps.

(The 56-kbps modem specification actually translates to a real-world cap of about 52 kbps, and a realistic maximum throughput averaging about 40 kbps. The quality of the copper phone wire and the phone jack being used, the distance from the user to the phone company's central office, and the Internet's and individual Web sites' level of traffic all factor into the apparent performance.)

A new standard, tentatively named V.92, promises to improve upstream rates by using pulse code modulation, a more efficient method of grabbing and packaging data for transmission. This standard also adds convenience features. With V.92, users who subscribe to a call-waiting service from their phone company will be able to initiate or take a voice call without losing an established data connection to the Internet--long the bane of analog modem users. Another V.92 feature, called QuickConnect, remembers handshake information between your modem and dial-up service, cutting the connection time almost in half.

With new compression technologies on the horizon that promise to improve performance by using a smaller share of the wire to transfer given data, and V.92's convenience features, it looks like the demise of dial-up networking, at least for now, has moved further out on the horizon.

Nathan Garcia is a freelance technology writer based in the San Francisco area and the host of On Computers, a radio call-in show that helps listeners fix computer problems.

[source]

Dial-Up Networking 101

Millions of us have used a dial-up account to get online right? So do you know how it works? Do you really? Here is a very nicely written primer on how it all takes place. by our friends at: PCWorld.com

Thomas William

VP Partner Solutions

Broadband in a Box

1302 Clear Springs Trace

Louisville Kentucky 40223

Direct: (502) 426.2067

Toll Free: (800) 761.9149

Fax: (502) 515.3710

Email: tomw@bbinabox.comWe explain the method most people use to connect to the Internet.

Nathan Garcia, special to PCWorld.com

Dial-up networking: the set of protocols and software used to connect a computer to an Internet service provider, an online service, or a remote computer through an analog modem and POTS (plain old telephone system).

Dial-up networking is the most widely used type of computer connection to the Internet. By the end of 2000, over a quarter of a billion subscribers were dialing in to the Internet--more than four times the number of users of other popular access methods, namely broadband DSL, cable, and ISDN modems. Here are the facts you need to know:

• Dial-up networking uses a modem as the interface between a single PC and a network such as the Internet; the modems are typically capable of speeds up to 56 kbps.
• Dialing up with a modem is still the cheapest and most widely available way to connect to the Internet, but because it offers comparatively slow connection speeds, graphics-intensive Web sites can take a long time to load.
• The maximum speed at which you can download data using dial-up networking is limited by the telephone system's analog bandwidth, the line quality, and the Internet traffic load.
• Dial-up networking usually communicates with the ISP using the Point to Point Protocol standard.

While broadband services such as DSL, cable modems, and satellite Internet are rapidly becoming available to more areas around the nation, dial-up networking continues to grow. It's estimated that wireless connectivity will pose the biggest challenge to dial-up networking in terms of subscribers sometime in the future. But analysts predict that, as of the end of 2001, more than twice as many people will continue to use dial-up networking than will use broadband services to connect to the Internet. In 2003 the gap will close, but dial-up networking will still be the most popular method by one and one-half times.

What's in a Handshake?

Dial-up networking is the simplest way to connect to the Internet: You just connect over the phone line using your modem, once you've subscribed to an ISP. For the most part, the software tools you need come built into Windows; some ISPs, such as EarthLink, furnish a user interface that makes setup even easier. Whichever method is used, dial-up customers usually only need to enter a user name and password, as well as the ISP's phone number, into a dialog box. The dial-up networking software uses that information to make the connection with the ISP and does all the rest of the work. After the initial setup, all that most customers need to do to make a connection is double-click an icon.

When you initiate the process, dial-up networking first directs your modem to dial the ISP's phone number, which is answered by another modem at the other end. For a few seconds the modems send control signals back and forth to determine how fast each can connect. The familiar screeching you hear when your modem first connects is the sound of your modem and the ISP's modem harmonizing the connection and deciding on a speed to use.

Once the connection is established, your modem silences its internal speaker, and dial-up networking sends your user name and password to the ISP using a process called CHAP--the challenge handshake authentication protocol. At the ISP's end, a computer checks your user name and password against a database of active customers. Once the ISP authenticates your information, the dial-up networking status window disappears, and you are free to surf, check and send e-mail, download files, and so forth. The process can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to complete.

PPP: Slightly Slower, but More Fault-Tolerant

Dial-up networking also breaks down your data into chunks, encoding and packaging the data before it goes on its way.

Dial-up networking uses a method called PPP (Point to Point Protocol) to package data for transmission over phone lines. As with ethernet, the PPP data packet, often called a frame, includes several parts. There are beginning and ending flags (called "wrappers") that bound the packet. Just like ethernet packets, PPP frames contain wrapper upon wrapper. The wrappers help direct the data within the packet to its destination using different protocols, such as TCP/IP, and also determine the type of data compression used on the packet.

One important distinction between PPP frames and ethernet packets is the capacity of damaged PPP packets to be recovered using a process called the frame check sequence. A packet occasionally gets lost or damaged en route; when it arrives at its destination, a damaged ethernet packet gets thrown out and a request goes back to the computer that sent the packet to resend it--a very time-consuming process if you use a dial-up connection, which is much slower than broadband.

In contrast, one part of a PPP wrapper contains a chunk of data called the validation value, which is verified at the destination. In some cases, a damaged PPP frame can be restored through the validation value, so it does not need to be resent.

While this process saves valuable time that would otherwise be used to resend every damaged packet, PPP's error-recovery features tend to make PPP run a bit more slowly than the simpler protocols that lack such error correction. But the Internet is a dangerous place for a data packet; errors or other problems can cause dozens of packets to drop each second. In the long run, PPP is far better suited to use over the Internet than other, less stringent protocols, so it has survived and flourished.

[source]

Rural Internet Connections In U.S. Falls Short of Other Countries

07/09/2007

In New Brunswick, Canada, 90 percent of the people living in rural communities have high-speed internet connections. In the U.S., only 38 percent of rural residents have broadband available.

Broadband connections have been increasing everywhere, but only a little over 30 percent of rural Americans have fast-speed Internet in their homes, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Rural Americans are less likely to use the Internet than people living in urban or suburban regions — and that is largely because they have less internet connections. Only 60 percent of rural residents use the Internet from any location, compared to the national average of 71 percent.

There is a large gap between rural and urban residents in the speed of their internet connection,according to a survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Living in a rural community is a bigger impediment to broadband connection than either race or income, according to Pew — and although rural Americans are quickly signing up for broadband connections, they are still two years behind the adoption rates in suburbia or the city. Only 38 percent of rural residents have a broadband Internet connection at either home or work, according to Pew. In the cities and suburbs, 55 percent have high-speed connections.

Geography, more than race, determines who has access to broadband Internet connections. According to Pew, African-Americans and whites with similar levels of education and income have similar levels of broadband use. But rural Americans of all races, incomes and education levels are significantly less likely to have speedy Internet connections.

Meanwhile, an attorney specializing in communications policy told the National Rural Assembly that rural residents in other countries had better access to faster broadband service. Mark Lloyd, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said the “great promise (of broadband service) is being realized in New Brunswick, Canada, and Tono, Japan, and in the farm country of south west Ireland. Great strides have been made in these countries since 2000. Great strides have not been made in Mississippi and Utah and Oklahoma and Kansas."

In New Brunswick, Canada, Lloyd said, a combination of government support and private investment had built out broadband connections to 327 small communities. Now over 90 percent of New Brunswickers have broadband access — at speeds that exceed that of cable modems and DSL in the U.S.

Only 38 percent of rural Americans have broadband connection either at home or at work. In urban areas, 58 percent of the people have fast-speed connection at some point during the day, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Mark Lloyd, far left, testified to an informal meeting in Congress during the National Rural Assembly.

Photo: M.A. Pember

Dial up is out; broadband is in for most of America, according to Pew.

[source]