“We have installed multiple ETL devices and have experienced few failures. They have been installed in our other facilities and they are reliable. It is also easy to integrate ETL equipment into our monitoring and control systems.”Said Ryosuke Aoki, Ground System Division engineer at SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation.
THE BACKGROUND
As Asia’s largest satellite operator, SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation has a fleet of 16 satellites, and is Japan’s only provider of both multi-channel pay TV broadcasting and satellite communications services.
SKY Perfect JSAT delivers a broad range of entertainment through the “SKY PerfecTV!” platform, the most extensive in Japan with a total of approximately 3 million subscribers. SKY Perfect JSAT’s satellite communications services, which cover Asia, Indian Ocean, Russia, Middle East, Pacific Ocean and North America, also play a vital role in supporting communications infrastructures for mobile backhaul, government, aviation, maritime, oil and gas and disaster recovery.
The Project
In order to utilise the JCSAT-1C High Throughput Satellite gateway antenna, designed to accommodate multiple users and service carriers, SKY Perfect JSAT needed to upgrade its existing antenna with RF over fibre capabilities.
This expansion highlighted a need for new RF over Fibre infrastructure that was both reliable and cost-effective as part of the JCSAT-1C HTS hub. SKY Perfect JSAT chose ETL Systems as its partner and deployed the UK-based company’s leading StingRay RF over Fibre product.
The Solution
As the new hub and RF/antenna are located on the same site, but in separate buildings, SKY Perfect JSAT needed to utilise RFoF; if traditional coaxial cables were used, the signal loss would have been too large.
SKY Perfect JSAT selected ETL Systems’ StingRay RF over Fibre Chassis because its fibre links offer low noise performance and high isolation between fibre modules.
As a HTS gateway, the site also required transport of a very high volume of IF signals. By using wavelength division multiplexing technology from ETL, the engineers were able to place many feeds on a single fibre, which has been crucial for streamlining operations and providing the additional capacity required for a successful upgrade.
Resilience and redundancy were also major factors in the decision-making process. ETL’s StingRay range offers RF over Fibre module configurations that provide system redundancy. The chassis itself also has hot-swap modules, fans and dual redundant power supplies to minimise the impact of any failure and provide service continuity.
Having already installed ETL Systems’ equipment in other facilities, SKY Perfect JSAT knew that it was reliable and easy to incorporate into its existing monitoring and control setup, making it an ideal choice for this project.