Thanks to the ongoing development of satellite technology, we’re able to use GPS to tell us where to go, connect to Wi-Fi on a flight and, as part of a growing trend, provide information on the supply chain of a strawberry, strengthening ‘farm-to-fork’ traceability. And this is just on the consumer side of things.
They can also be used for vital communications during natural disasters, weather forecasting and industry production. Within the cocoa growing industry, for instance, legislation passed to enforce goods sold within the EU aren’t linked to deforestation (the EUDR), is harnessing satellite technology to monitor cocoa farms and forest loss.
A brief history of satellite technology shows the first satellite was launched in 1957 – the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1. Satellites used to weigh up to six tonnes, and images captured from space were printed and put together by hand. Much has changed since then – but there is still room for improvement, I discovered in a conversation with Stephan Bernard, Head of Business Development at Sateliot.
He explained that the founding of Sateliot, which was in 2018, was driven by its vision to make satellite technology “accessible, cost-effective and massive [scalable]”. Sateliot is “industry agnostic,” Bernard added, because they can provide connectivity anywhere in the world. He stressed that they don’t look to compete with terrestrial networks.
“There are industries or verticals that have demonstrated more demand for our service because a large portion of their operations are based in rural or remote areas,” Bernard explained. As an example, 25% of Brazil’s GDP is made up of its agricultural operations, and only 20% of this agricultural terrain has connectivity. Implementation of technologies, therefore, has been slow to happen in the case of Brazil because of the lack of connectivity.
Industries that have demonstrated more demand for affordable and accessible satellite tech to provide connectivity are agriculture, livestock, oil and gas, transport and logistics and the maritime industry. In agriculture, for instance, using IoT technology with connectivity facilitated by satellites, agricultural workers could install soil humidity sensors to get an exact understanding of the humidity and calculate how much water to feed crops. “You can also ensure that you’re not wasting resources and not using more water than you need,” said Bernard, noting that this helps to combat climate change.
Their customers are IoT companies that manufacture their own devices for these industries and oftentimes offer a SaaS platform for analytics.
Adoption of 3GPP Release 17
Sateliot supported the approval of 3GPP Release 17, which was instrumental because non-terrestrial networks became part of the standard. Previously, there had been no standardised protocol for satellites.
Satellite technology enables the digitalisation of key sectors that haven’t necessarily been able to do so, because of the cost, which proves to be a barrier to deployment and scalability. “If you take a look at the legacy satellite market, they’re all based on proprietary networks which means they each have a specific communication protocol that only works with that network,” Bernard explained. “The operators not only have to deploy the satellites but they also have to provide the end-to-end solution to customers, meaning they have to manufacture their own devices.”
A key part of Sateliot’s strategy was to foster partnerships with MNOs. “We’ve always believed that in order to allow for mass scalability and digitalisation of key sectors, the cooperation and partnership with telecom operators is essential,” said Bernard. “MNOs have local knowledge, networks deployed all over the earth and millions of subscribers – it was always very clear that the best way to go to market to allow mass adoption was to partner up with telecom operators as we use the same protocol as they offer on terrestrial networks.”
Narrowband (NB) IoT is the network technology Sateliot utilises with its satellites, because it is now a standard protocol and MNOs use it. “We’d been working for a couple of years raising funds, investing in technology, investing in our team and investing in a satellite constellation, before the 3GPP standard was approved. We did this because we were convinced that the only way to allow for mass scalability with IoT connectivity is by leveraging standard communication protocols.”
Other advantages offered by NB-IoT includes its capability for massive machine type communications and features that mean devices such as sensors can last out in the field, operating for five to 10 years, which results in a cost-effective solution. “NB-IoT has always been focused on Low Power Wide Area networks (LPWAN), so you don’t send your voice or images through narrowband, it’s focused on purely data like temperatures, locations, humidity and so on.”
Sateliot plans to begin its commercial operations at the beginning of the year, which means its satellites will be available for commercial use. It will also be launching four commercial satellites at the beginning of July.
Bernard noted his own excitement: “I think we are at the brink of a revolution. This has been coming for the last five years and now we’re really, really close to seeing that revolution take place.”
“A big part of what we’ve been doing aside from setting up agreements and partnerships is educating the ecosystem about this technology that hasn’t existed up until today,” Bernard added. “There was a lot of scepticism in the beginning about the usability of it and whether or not it would work.”
Colour me educated.
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