neXat’s award-winning platform redefines satcom management

Satellite operators are under pressure. The market environment is rapidly changing, and satellite-based networks are increasingly complex. What’s more, end users are demanding the easiest possible access to critical communication services at the lowest possible price. neXat’s answer to these challenges is a unique virtualized OSS-BSS platform that offers multiple operational and business support systems as well as facilitated access to new and better services. We spoke with neXat’s Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, Fulvio Sansone, to find out more about the innovative platform that defines the company as a satellite technology provider.

Crispin Littlehales, Executive Editor, Satellite Evolution Group

Question: neXat describes itself as a worldwide technology and operator-agnostic satellite telecommunications service provider. What services does the company offer?

Fulvio Sansone: We launched neXat in 2010 offering satellite-based connectivity mainly for internet access in Sub-Saharan Africa, using VSAT technology. From the beginning, the co-founders decided to follow a different approach from other satcom service providers. Instead of investing in satellite access infrastructures, teleports, and hubs, we elected to work in partnership with existing operators. That way we were able to focus on the development of a service delivery platform sitting between the teleport/hub and the backbone.

Our first objective was to create a platform that allowed us to define and implement customer service packs by routing and shaping the end user traffic, making our services independent from the satellite communications technology implemented in remote sites.  At the same time, the platform enabled us to offer functionality to all the players in the value chain including monitoring and management functions going from the automated life-cycle management of the remote terminals to billing, accounting, and payment capabilities.  

Another business line that we are developing is secured platform and communications. We see a growing interest from the market for secured communications and the development of GovSatCom and IRIS2 will hopefully produce a leverage effect opening up opportunities at different levels with governmental organizations in Europe.

Fulvio Sansone, Chief Technology Officer and co-Founder, neXat

Question: What sets neXat apart from other satcom service providers?

Fulvio Sansone: We have continued to develop our platform based on the requirements we have collected from our customers and today we have evolved it into a satcom specific OSS/BSS (Operational Support/Business Support Systems). A couple of years ago, we realized that it could be a very useful infrastructure for other service providers, especially regional satellite operators. We decided to offer the neXat® virtualized OSS/BSS platform as a way for those entities to provide services to their own customers using a Platform-as-a-Service approach.

The platform is unique in the industry in that it not only includes business support functions, such as accounting, billing, troubleshooting, ticketing and the like, but also provides operational support down to the definition and enforcement of end user service profiles and traffic policing, without forgetting link status monitoring, real-time traffic monitoring, and historical traffic information.

Typically, all the satcom service providers rely on the traffic shaping capabilities that are embedded in a hub. In our case, the services are totally independent from the hub because we define and enforce them in our own infrastructure. That means we can provide any kind of service regardless of the type of hub involved. Apart from the physical limitations, the service is completely independent from the technology.

Question: On the company website there are a number of case histories describing situations where neXat technology has helped to bring services to underserved areas. Who are your customers and what is your role in helping to close the digital divide?

Fulvio Sansone: In general, bringing services to underserved areas is a merit of satellite communications because they are independent from terrestrial infrastructures. You need only to have visibility of the sky to set up a connection. What sets neXat apart from other providers when it comes to bridging the digital divide is the range of value-added services we can provide. Our direct customers are local ISPs and service providers. We have more than 100 partners in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Far East. As you can imagine, all these local partners are targeting areas that are underserved. Using our platform, they resell services locally adding value with the terminal installation, maintenance and troubleshooting, licensing, payment collection, user support and help desk.

Our platform can support the connectivity needs of any activity taking place in a remote location. The end users vary widely. There are religious missions, NGOs, maritime operations, mining companies, and many others. We have been active in this area since our company’s inception.

One example of how our platform has helped to enrich the lives of those living in remote communities is E-learning. We have participated in several projects where satcom was used to provide E-learning to remote communities, sometimes for direct teaching to students and in other cases for training the teachers. In such an application satcom has proven to be very efficient, thanks to its capability of exploiting multicasting which allows the distribution of content to multiple recipients in one go, thus dramatically reducing the cost of content distribution.

We also provide our Platform-as-a-Service to regional operators who want to move downstream and offer managed services to their customers. To do that, they need to acquire satellite access infrastructures like teleports and hubs. In addition, they need all the tools to manage their customer base and offer monitoring and management functions to the value chain. That is where neXat comes in with our platform offered in a quasi-pure OPEX approach. In that sense we are contributors to any contributions those operators make to closing the digital divide.

Photo courtesy Shutterstock/sdecoret

Question: In what ways do you see the ground segment innovating?

Fulvio Sansone: The satellite ground segment is, in my view, composed of two main parts: the end user terminal and the satellite access infrastructure. With the advent of satellite constellations in lower orbits which are not fixed in the sky, the cost and form factor of the end user terminal are of the utmost importance. The terminal cannot be too sophisticated, and it cannot be too costly because you want to sell high volumes. They also need to be easy to install and operate. What is needed are flat panel steerable antennas that are reasonably priced. We still lack fully satisfactory solutions in this area, and I think there is considerable opportunity for those who can afford the large R&D investment necessary for the development of such antennas.

The trend for satellite access infrastructure is to embrace virtualization, containerization and standardization of interfaces. It’s more of an evolution than a disruption so the industry is going in this direction step by step. Our platform is mostly virtualized and based on standardized interfaces with the hub. That means that neXat is already well placed for the future.

Question: So, basically, you are ready for the future, but the future of multi-orbit has not quite yet arrived?

Fulvio Sansone: It depends on where you position yourself. For us, we see the satellite link as a kind of pipe that we use in order to transfer information from a remote. If at the remote you want to have multiple satellite connectivity, we have developed a solution called neXlink SD-WAN. Let’s say that at the remote you have multiple channels—a LEO, a GEO, cellular, Wi-Fi—to get connected to the backbone. We allow all these with intelligent local routers and the customer can implement a solution which allows them to choose which channel to use depending on the availability latency. In that case, we are facilitating multi-orbit connectivity.

Question: neXat was recently appointed to a European Union consortium to provide infrastructure to support greater satellite capacity for governments across the continent. Could you provide more details about this project and the role that neXat will play?

Fulvio Sansone: neXat is an associate member of a consortium led by GMV, a Spanish space integrator that was awarded a contract from the European Union Space Policy Agency (EUSPA) for the development and implementation of the GovSatCom hub. The hub is the realization of a concept for pooling and sharing ground infrastructure which was put forward by the European Commission and the European Union. It is intended to serve as the gateway between satellite resource providers and so-called Competent Governmental Authorities of the EU.

For each European country, there is an appointed authority which has the role of collecting the requirements of the different governmental users. Those requirements are then consolidated, and the services are requested through the GovSatCom hub to the different satellite operators and connectivity providers. This enables the users to have easy access to all the available services.

Although we are not at liberty to disclose additional details about the role of each member of the consortium, neXat’s contribution is strongly based on the long experience that we have had in the development of providing secure satellite connectivity services as well as on the technology neXat evolved to build its OSS/BSS platform.

Question: What challenges do you think the European telecommunications sector faces with the rise of vertically integrated services like Starlink?

Fulvio Sansone: The advent of Starlink and the service it offers has created a very competitive market environment which has been detrimental to the legacy connectivity provision business of value-added service providers like us. When it comes to Starlink, vertical integration also includes go-to-the market strategy. Their approach is to prevent service providers from being able to offer the service, apart from a very restricted number of authorized resellers. These are large companies that have made significant commitments and associated investments and are willing to comply with very restrictive financial conditions and tight margins.

From a technological point of view, compared to what was available previously, Starlink offers a low-cost terminal that is easy to set up and connect to the satellite network. The cost of the subscription is also comparatively low, with performance that is impressive compared to legacy satellite services.

The problem is that you cannot resell Starlink with value-added services and support. We have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of end users and we hope competitive solutions will become available as soon as possible and that such solutions will allow for downstream partners to have a role in the commercialization of the services. Otherwise not only Europe but also developing countries will see a number of small businesses disappear.