Broadband access for faster online trade

Currently, there are more than 400 million PCs in the world with about 50 million being added each year. Experts estimate that roughly 25 percent of those are connected to the Internet. An increasing number of users, both in the residential and the business market are not satisfied with the data rates of a common dial-up telephone modem.

A satellite can fill in pockets where other technologies can’t reach. It provides global coverage in a single network by its very nature. Quality of service and reliability are high. Furthermore, satellites are unequalled for broadcast applications, such as the delivery of the same information to a large group of users. A majority of the Internet applications in the future will be streaming, broad and multicast services, such as playing audio or video. Some of the best online stock trade platforms are now part of dedicated satellite networks that offer round the clock service.

Consider the network used by a prominent stock exchange. This network supported more than 2000 Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs) and is expected to grow to more than 4500 VSATs in the coming year. This network is now one of the largest private networks and is the first extended C-Band VSAT network in the world. Currently, more than 2600 users are trading on real-time online applications. There are 14 large computer systems, which include non-stop fault tolerant computers and high end UNIX servers that are operational under one roof to support the various applications. This coupled with the countrywide VSAT networks makes this system one the largest information technology users.
The communication protocol used by the system is called X.25 and provides guaranteed data delivery with minimal protocol overhead. The telecommunications department has allocated a satellite resource of 9 MHz (a quarter of a transponder on the satellite) to this network. Since this system is getting popular, more satellite services will have to be negotiated.