Reliability is of the upmost importance in the satellite and communications industry, and as further validation of their confidence, Horizon Satellite Services selected Newtec to maintain satellite links at all times, regardless of weather conditions.

Newtec announced that Horizon Satellite Solutions, headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, has selected FlexACM from Newtec as a solution capable of maintaining the service of satellite links at all times, in all weather conditions, and delivering highly increased IP throughput. Horizon implemented FlexACM on an IP point-tomultipoint star network, and achieved 100 percent IP link availability, and a significant higher average throughput.

Horizon has a link with an uplink in Europe, connecting to several sites in the Middle East. Regarding a specific site, receiving conditions were not optimal because the location was on the edge of the satellite footprint. Further, the link experienced a daily variation of 3dB peak-to-peak in C/N due to interference from adjacent carrier intermodulation and antenna tracking errors, very frustrating, no doubt.

Horizon Satellite opted to upgrade its existing Newtec equipment to enable Newtec’s FlexACM solution. The upgrade involved adding a redundant Newtec EL860 ACM Controller, Traffic Shaper and IP Encapsulator to the hub and to upgrade the modems EL470 of the remote stations with FlexACM clients. All products are part of Newtec’s Elevation product family and the performance of the end-to-end solution is maximized thanks to the cross layer optimization of the different FlexACM components.

After the upgrade to FlexACM, the link remained up at all times, even during degraded link conditions. In addition to this, Horizon was able to utilize a higher modulation order on its links, increasing from 16APSK 2/3 to 16APSK 5/6. This meant a throughput gain of 74 Mbps to 92 Mbps, on average an increase of 25 percent. Horizon is now assured that the link performs to what is maximum achievable at any time and in any condition.

Subair Mullappally, Operations Director at Horizon said: “Using FlexACM we not only benefit from an increased throughput, but the down-time of Horizon’s links has been completely removed, delivering and “always-on” service level to our customers at all times.”

Serge Van Herck CEO Newtec said: “Horizon is yet another high profile customer that has adopted our FlexACM solution. The offering is an extremely beneficial solution and works to optimize degraded link conditions such as rain, when a satellite is in declined orbit or when it is experiencing limited receive conditions.”

“FlexACM brings huge benefits to our customers by assuring 100 percent availability, lower operational costs and higher revenue streams,” concluded Van Herck. Due to the excellent results Horizon received following the implementation of FlexACM, the Company decided to also replace the legacy equipment in its return links with Newtec equipment, as well as implementing the solution into three more of its links.