Benefit Analysis of Integration of MSS in Terrestrial Mobile Networks

Objectives

To study the role of satellites in support of terrestrial mobile networks and the conditions to maximise the likelihood of take-up of an integrated mobile satellite system.

In particular this study aims to identify:

• Which opportunities exist for the integration of satellite and terrestrial mobile networks? - Identify and measure synergies between satellite and terrestrial systems,
• What impact could these opportunities have? - Identify synergies which could enhance terrestrial networks,
• How to implement the opportunities? - Determine the optimum approach to achieve these synergies through integration,
• Whether the proposed approaches are likely to be cost effective? - Develop a cost benefit analysis to assess the value of these approaches,
• What supporting actions are needed to make satellite integration a reality? Identify the necessary supporting technologies which need to be developed,
• Disseminate the findings so that the opportunities may be realised - Use the cost benefit analysis (CBA) and business case outputs to persuade and influence infrastructure and device manufacturers and service providers that satellite services have a role to play in an overall solution.

Features

A range of scenarios will be developed. The scenarios will start from the simplest, where satellite is providing backhaul services to a mobile network to more complex scenarios where the satellite systems become an integrated part of the mobile terrestrial architecture for certain geographic/demographic cases and applications. Each scenario may require a slightly different architecture. This project will identify the required target architecture and a number of interim architectures that may be required to implement the less simple scenarios.

Project Plan

We expect to make the following key deliverables.

Challenges

There have been a number of high profile satellite programmes targeted at mobile communications that have resulted in poor take-up of communications services. The project analyses these failures in the context of the mobile communications value chain and identifies reasons for failure and success.

Benefits

The expected main benefits of this project are that a set of suitable scenarios for integration of mobile (LTE) and satellite services will be developed. Further the cost modelling work will establish the potential size of the addressable market. An analysis of the mobile value chain will help establish the practical feasibility of the integration scenarios.

Current Status (dated: 10 Jan 2012)

So far a good description of the environment and future forecasts has been completed. The development of the cost model(s) is ongoing and lessons learnt deliverable is in draft form.