The coverage conundrum
The mobile industry today still faces the same fundamental challenge it did in its infancy – how to deliver network coverage and capacity to subscribers, wherever they are. As cellular technology has evolved through the various generations, this problem has stubbornly persisted. Over the years the industry has tried many innovations from the adoption of complementary Wi-Fi networks to small cells, and a range of other solutions, to try to deliver universal coverage.
However, it’s still common to suffer from so-called ‘not-spots’ even within major cities, where coverage should be a given, and even more so in rural and remote areas. Today, even in an economically developed country such as the UK, communications regulator Ofcom estimates that as much as 9% of the country does not have mobile signal.
Is satellite the solution?
Despite some of the marketing hype we’ve seen over the years, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The reality is that subscribers use a patchwork of different network types including terrestrial 4G, 5G and Wi-Fi in their everyday lives, connecting to the best and strongest signal for their location.
5G satellites are a powerful addition to the connectivity portfolio that, in many situations, will flip the switch between no signal and, to begin with, basic connectivity, delivering 100% outdoor cellular coverage, even in rural and remote areas where providing cellular service today is not economically viable.
Initial mass market applications and services
Despite the focus of many early industry demos being on delivering high-bandwidth video streaming or calling, the reality is that these services, while a great illustration of the technology’s potential, do not show the initial, mass-market impacts that satellites are going to have. Consulting firm Novaspace recently predicted that the direct-to-device (D2D) satellite connectivity market will grow from $1.5 billion today to nearly $15 billion by 2033, fuelled by rapid advances in technology and expanding satellite networks. For a large swathe of applications and services, connectivity of any type is all that is required. Some examples include:
- Messaging first – For almost all of the Direct-to-Device services launched to date, the first applications have been messaging. Variations on the theme of “from SOS to SMS” headlines underscored how these have evolved from initial emergency messaging to more general SMS and other messaging services. These are in many ways ideally suited to early satellite networks as they are both low-bandwidth and very latency tolerant.
- Transport Apps - Many of these use very little data to deliver services such as traffic information, bus locations or to make transactions, but are part of the fabric of mobile services which make everyday life a little easier, facilitating everything from paying for parking, to buying a train ticket or hiring an eBike or scooter. Many are impossible without coverage but work perfectly well with even a low-bandwidth connection. This will be familiar to anyone who has waved their phone in the air while trying to use the Ringo parking payment app in a car park near a beach!
- IoT Sensors – Across a range of industries including water, agriculture, oil & gas and logistics, low-cost IoT sensors are becoming commonplace for everything from asset tracking to equipment performance monitoring. By adopting 3GPP standards users enjoy all of the benefits of a globally standardised technology, including economies of scale and a range of supplier options. However terrestrial networks are generally poor precisely where coverage is most needed for these sensors – in rural and remote areas. Utilising satellite based IoT networks opens up a huge number of transformative use cases across a broad range of vertical industry segments.
- Automotive – Direct-to-Vehicle (D2V) is set to be another key use-case for 5G NTN, with both the cellular and automotive industries heavily investing in the area, aware of its significant benefits to their sector. Similarly, with IoT, tracking and connecting to sensor in vehicles opens up application areas from performance and location tracking to emergency communications. For these to work however 100% connectivity is required and again this includes rural and remote areas where terrestrial connectivity is often patchy or poor. There are a number of these applications which will work well on the initial networks, with others such as multimedia entertainment and even autonomous vehicles being possible as NTN continues to evolve and increase their performance.
These are just a few examples of nascent use-cases enabled by the connectivity provided by 5G NTN – even simple connectivity can be revolutionary for many applications and services. Beyond this, there is also a clear evolutionary path to the delivery of wideband (up to 10 Mbps) and eventually broadband (over 10 Mbps), opening up an even broader range of potential applications and use cases for both consumers and enterprises.
The market itself is also accelerating with CCS Insight forecasting the number of D2D NTN connections globally will grow from 330m to 925m by 2028.
Looking to the future
As we look forward to 6G, one of the identified pillars for this next generation is ubiquitous connectivity and it is clear that NTNs will be essential to delivering on this goal. Another pillar is network simplification, which implies that connectivity will not only need to be ubiquitous, it will also need to be seamless, so that a user does not need to take any action to use the best network available to access their services.
Here at AccelerComm we are working hard to maximise the performance of the constellations of 5G satellites that are set to be launched over the next few years. In parallel, our research teams are working with the standards groups to see how we can make future generations of the technology deliver ever more seamless services in the future.
To learn more about the current state of the 5G NTN market and to hear about use cases click on the following link to see our recent joint webinar with industry analyst firm CCS Insight looking at "Beyond Emergency Messaging: The Road to Advanced Direct-to-Device NTN Services"
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