India to Connect Its Airports with ViaSat Satcom Network

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has decided to have ViaSat provide a broadband satellite communications network to connect 80 airports in that country.

AAI is building a communications infrastructure to operate all its air-traffic related applications on a common network, based entirely on satellite connections.  The Authority wants its Dedicated Satellite Communication Network (DSCN), to not only fulfill the specialized communications and networking requirements of ATM (air traffic management), but also the need for typical voice, fax, data, and video applications across all of India's main airport infrastructure.  India's ATM requirements include exchanging radar data and aeronautical messages between airports, remote monitoring of VHF air-ground communication equipment and telemetry, and satellite navigation of Ionosphere models and error correction.

ViaSat's LINKWAY is an MF-TDMA (multiple frequency- time division multiple access) mesh-networking VSAT (very small aperture terminal) that can make direct connections between locations with a single satellite "hop" and no central hub.  Its satellite modems include what ViaSat calls Dynamic Bandwidth Resource Allocation technology that can reduce communication costs by using advanced coding techniques and an on-demand assignment of satellite bandwidth across the network.  ViaSat says LINKWAY allows customers to set priorities for different types of IP (Internet protocol) services as well.

The network will be implemented by Airtel Enterprise Services, the enterprise arm of India's Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd. (BTVL).  02-08-2005.

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