David Gelerman, President and CEO of SpaceBridge speaks to Teletimes International
Mr. Gelerman is a visionary engineer, innovator and businessman with over 40 years of experience. In 1988, Mr. Gelerman founded SpaceBridge Inc. (formerly Advantech Wireless Inc.), serving as President and CEO for the last 31 years. Steering the company from start-up to becoming a dominant global player in the satellite ground communication business, both in baseband products and networking, as well as radio frequency converters and amplifiers. In 2018, after the divestiture of radio frequency business, Mr. Gelerman carries on forward with the VSAT Networking business, keeping in tradition and with continued strengths as a best-in-class industry leader, leading the pace of innovation with one of the most advanced VSAT satellite network platforms, concentrating on VHTS, NGSO satellites and cost effective modems/routers for mass broadband consumer Internet market.
Prior to founding the company, Mr. Gelerman held various management and design engineering positions at Nortel Networks, in the Transmission Networks Division, where he led team that developed multibillion-dollar microwave terrestrial radio business.
Mr. Gelerman holds a Master’s of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (MSEE), specializing in Wireless Communications and Broadcasting.
Khalid Athar: How did the 2019 year play out for the satellite industry and for SpaceBridge in specific?
David Gelerman: 2019 was a pivotal year for the industry as a whole and for SpaceBridge in particular. The industry started a consolidation trend whereby competitors are buying each other to have a larger market share. I believe that soon we will see more accretive acquisitions that will involve the satellite operators who instead of looking for very high EBITDA (and hence the ability of high leveraging) as they usually did will start following the traditional KPIs for doing business, such as ROI and profit margins. This trend will result in acquisitions around ground infrastructure equipment providers and ISPs to create fully integrated companies that can compete on equal footing with the companies that transformed from equipment providers to solution providers by launching their own satellites and also running retail.
Industry focuses on the LEO/MEO satellite will increase the capacity per each satellite by manifold. For SpaceBridge in specific, in 2019, we launched the C7700 cost-effective modem/router for mass broadband access market that fully meets the current market requirements and price point. We sold it from $250 in small quantities to $200 in large quantities. We entirely redesigned its HTS Platform and introduced to the market the SatCloudTM offering which is our SCPC-DAMA high data rate managed services platform.
KA: Can you give us a quick overview of the solutions you are providing?
DG: Today, SpaceBridge provides complete ground infrastructure required for communication with LEO/MEO/GEO satellites. This covers complete end-to-end solutions, including construction of the teleports for VSAT platforms that provide networking solutions, unmanned gateways, maned HUBs Teleports and various types of application oriented remote terminals, as well as the SCPC modems, and a combination of both for variety of applications such as low cost/high performance broadband internet access, cellular backhaul, maritime, oil and gas, mining, telemedicine, critical infrastructures like homeland security, air traffic control (ATC) and military amongst others.
KA: Looking back at the change from Advantech to SpaceBridge as the main brand, how did it go from a marketing point of view?
DG: SpaceBridge is not exactly a brand-new name. For thirty years, we were known as the Advantech Wireless. This premium brand was highly sought for RF equipment but to a certain degree, it overshadowed our VSAT and broadcast business. Therefore, once we divested the RF business, we decided to use the name associated with the current business. In 2005 we purchased SpaceBridge Networks, the Ottawa based company specializing in development of the ASICs based on the DVB open standards two-way communication. As the current business closely represents the work done by SpaceBridge, it made a lot of sense to use this name. We had already maintained the spacebridge.com domain for all these years so it was easy to make that shift.
It is quite difficult to come up with the right and meaningful name that properly represents your marketplace and to have the domain available for such a name which was another reason for us to go ahead with this. During the last year, we launched an extensive promotion campaign to explain our history to the satellite market detailing on who we are as a company. Most of the people now know that SpaceBridge is the combination of the former Advantech Satellite Networks (previously also known as EMS Satellite Networks), SpaceBridge Networks, ACT-Wireless and Signal Processors Limited (SPL). Basically a combination of the companies that were acquired and integrated by Advantech Wireless. Looking back, it was the best thing we could have done, as today our customers are not confused about who we are and what are we doing. We have received great feedback on our campaign, we have created a momentum and gained the trust of our customers.
KA: Many of our readers would be interested in details about SatCloud. How can businesses benefit from it?
DG: SatCloud™ is a cloud-based, dynamic SCPC Bandwidth-on-Demand solution. Satellite service providers struggle to raise a budget or major funds required for new operations, as they do with choosing the right technology to commit to, and investing in relevant human resources and training, due to lack of visibility of integration costs when starting a new operation. SpaceBridge has created SatCloud™, a new, first-of-its-kind service to help address and resolve these challenges.
Designed to address satellite network operators’ challenges, SatCloud™ solution uses Cloud Teleport Services such as Scheduling and Orchestration. Ideal for starter hubs, new service providers, pay-as-you-grow, new and/or gradual deployments models, SatCloud™ was designed to scale from just a few Mbps to hundreds of Mbps, measured by remote terminal throughput.
SatCloud™ offers a cloud-orchestrated solution for service providers that want to provide occasional managed high-bit rate and on-demand end-to-end satellite solutions. This includes teleports, broadcasters, satellite operators, satellite network operators and ISPs as well as companies dealing in oil & gas, energy, and maritime satellite networks, satellite-delivered cloud applications providers and enterprise networks.
With SatCloud™, you avoid the need to invest capital expenses in deploying a new platform which is a significant reduction in risk. You also avoid the additional startup costs of training your engineering & support teams on new hardware systems maintenance and support. You pay only for what you need with pay-as–you–grow model, while gaining a complete Operation Suite for free. At the same time, you can enjoy managed services provided through our network operation centers managed by our highly-dedicated and experienced engineers. SatCloud comes with 24×7 network management services, based on a complete OpEx model for credit approved customers/partners.
KA: How are satellites contributing to the IoT space? Especially Industrial IoT?
DG: The proliferation of IP-enabled industrial things, or “objects,” equipped with sensors, processors and network capabilities means that more and more remote device functions and operations can and will be reported, controlled and automated via the internet and IP networks. The business benefits from IIoT can be large across many industries. They range from cost and downtime reductions, to efficiency and productivity gains, to better asset tracking and resource management, to new revenue opportunities.
SpaceBridge products and technology can uniquely address Industrial IoT/Machine-to-Machine data networking requirements for a wide variety of Industrial IoT (IIoT) applications. These include smart infrastructure, logistics, healthcare, smart utilities, and other solutions for various use cases in energy, insurance, mining, agriculture, ATM networks, lottery networks, kiosk & signage and many more.
Satellite networking advantages of the two-way satellite VSAT networks can provide major benefits for large-scale Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) data networks. VSAT has proven to be a very reliable and cost-effective technology for collecting and distributing data to/from large numbers of distributed elements from different geographically dispersed locations. As a wireless bypass technology, VSATs can deliver uniform QOS network availability and managed network performance standards — across multiple countries, or telecoms provider territories.
KA: Tell us a little bit more about your offerings in the IoT and IIoT space?
DG: SpaceBridge VSAT platform offers major advantages for powering Industrial IoT (IIoT/M2M) systems that require large-scale IP data networks, particularly those with geographically dispersed networks of many sites: our VSAT solution cost-effectively scales from a handful of locations to hundreds of thousands remote locations. VSAT terminals can be rapidly set up to connect IoT traffic from remote locations that have no telecoms to provide either push to, or pull from the Hub.
ASAT System for IoT: The single SpaceBridge ASAT™ VSAT network can address industrial IoT data network requirements across many industries and cover hundreds of thousands subscribers. The solution typically includes SpaceBridge VSAT HUB and ASAT™ built-for IOT/M2M low cost VSAT C8000 all-outdoor Terminal.
Solution Overview
SpaceBridge provides a solution for connecting IP-enabled devices, located anywhere within a broad satellite footprint, to an organization’s central IoT system. A VSAT terminal/router installed at any given remote location and connected to IoT “Objects” such as sensors, meters, digital displays, or other devices. IoT device data, such as telematics, controls, content, status, etc., is routed via this VSAT terminal to the main system via satellite. IoT devices can be directly connected to a remote VSAT router by a LAN, or traffic can be received from downstream source devices via wireless methods such as Wi-Fi, LTE, RFID, low-power radio, etc. A VSAT terminal can also aggregate traffic from local devices, routers, other “edge nodes” and downstream network spokes, for final long-distance connectivity to the central IoT system. Once connected over the VSAT data network, Edge Nodes become accessible to the central IoT management system.
SpaceBridge VSAT HUB: The HUB for IoT manages network parameters across the network of remote VSAT terminals, and routes data to the customer’s central IoT system. It can set up and run optimal satellite capacity use parameters based on the IoT data traffic requirements with as mentioned 384 bits granularity per terminal/per any pre-set period of time (like 1 sec, 1 min, 1 hour, etc.). It may be co-located with the customer’s IoT system at corporate location, or connected to a data center, or the Cloud.
ASAT ™ Built-for IOT/M2M VSAT Terminals: SpaceBridge’s IoT/M2M terminals are ultra-compact, all-outdoor weatherized integrated (BUC/LNBF/modem) Ka and Ku-band satellite terminals for end-to-end satellite communications Internet of Things (IoT).
C8000 ASAT™ VSAT terminals connect to “IoT Objects” (e.g. sensors, meters, devices) at the remote site. The VSAT terminal routes data to the satellite and HUB for onward delivery to the customer’s IoT platform or application.
The C8000 ASAT™ terminal is designed specifically to deliver the best value-to-cost mix in a miniature, lightweight weatherized outdoor installation, meeting IoT requirements for compact sizing, ultra-low power consumption, and highly reliable, maintenance-free operation. Reliable broadband duplex IP communication Forward / Return link at IP speeds, the C8000 adds blazing-fast link speeds up to 100 / 10 Mbps (down / up) and increased IP networking features. Single PoE cable greatly simplifies installation. Easy do-it-yourself (DIY)/Non-professional self-installation and commissioning makes site installation and setup easier and more affordable than ever.
SpaceBridge ASAT ™ IoT/M2M Advantages: Guaranteed polled access: From pipelines, to ATMs, from video surveillance to Smart Grids — provision network resources to meet varying traffic demand and priorities and optimize capacity. From bursty transactions to occasional polling, to video streaming, or daily bulk data uploads, our dynamically configurable space segment access method enables configuration to the exact polling needs of an IoT application.
The SpaceBridge’s WaveSwitch™ seamlessly optimizes the system’s satellite access method to suit varying customer application requirements in real time. This industry-first VSAT System with “on-the-fly” waveform switching, allocates bandwidth to sites or groups in real-time from a common pool of space segment. WaveSwitch™ dynamically selects from SpaceBridge’s industry leading RCSX™ choice of waveforms – ASCPC™, MF-TDMA or SCPC DVB-S2X access technologies.
From Low-Bit Rate to Broadband: Deliver a range of services – from multi-megabit data for Smart Grid or surveillance to low-bit-rates for machine-polling — and reduce or optimize satellite costs.
Flexible Architecture: Star, Mesh and SCPC Point-to-Point network typologies can all be supported on the same platform, which comes with IP satellite link acceleration, optimization, header and payload compression, Network Management and QOS tools, and industrial-grade end-to-end IP security.
KA: Which segments are displaying the highest signs of growth for SpaceBridge?
DG: The segments showing the highest growth signs for SpaceBridge would be the low cost mass market broadband Internet access, Cellular Backhaul (CBH), MNOs segment and the impact of 5G technologies that will revolutionize the market need of much higher bandwidth consumption for backhauling and integration into METRO Ethernet networks using innovative latest standards such as MEF and SD-WAN.
NGSO Constellations (MEO and LEO): Apart from all the great innovation that we have embarked upon with the adoption of the advanced NGSO networks, we will require to pay close attention to changes in the system architectures. It comes to managing every network resources and optimizing them, ensuring integration between the network components rules and the ground Internet network infrastructure and the Satellite Gateways and terminals that will allow a competitive business case to compete with terrestrial Fiber Optic networks.
Moving to managed services: Advanced cloud-based networks, just like the SatCloud™ we introduced to the market last year, will be penetrating and becoming more available to lower overall cost of ownership.
We expect several huge networks to use the innovative technologies of the advanced platforms that we have been working on for many years. And of course, other verticals we have been exposed to for many years, including IIoT, maritime, IFC, and of course consumer broadband. Last, but not least, Tactical Satellite Communications Infrastructure Market for the benefit of military forces in various tiers and topologies will also be an area of growth for us in the coming future.
KA: What will be your focus for 2020?
DG: SpaceBridge holds a unique position today. As the satellite communications field underwent a fundamental transformation, it evolved us into a software provider that provides an end-to-end integrated solution to any satellite network needs, regardless of the specific verticals, i.e., as a software company, we consider ourselves a senior partner for any entrepreneur, SME or enterprise establishing a new satellite network. We see ourselves offering our network services to every existing customer in the market, indiscriminately to which segment they belong. Once a broadband satellite service can be provided that is superior to what is served through fiber optic in terms of bandwidth, latency and also in terms of price, a major differentiator in the value chain is created here.
In 2020 SpaceBridge will be focusing to continue the integration and development of NGSO / VHTS satellite networks cost reduction, enabling further smooth integration into SD-WAN networks and delivering the most capable satellite network with user friendly orchestration and unlimited broadband. We will be focusing on various segments ranging from households to airplanes to cruise ships or even tactical on-the-move and on-the-pause fighters – all of this will be possible thanks to our dynamic, high performance and cost effective next-generation satellite communications ground segment infrastructure.
