Attaining Faster Data Transmission Through Free Space Optics

As with most all enterprises using data, the demand for the speed of the transmission of data through networks is always increasing.  Within the satellite industry, modern High Throughput Satellites (HTS) deliver uplink and downlink data via spot beams at speeds up to 100 Mbps per user.  

However even at such speeds, the satellite network is a bottleneck for the transmission of data.  The transmission of data over traditional satellite networks (non-HTS) is even slower. To exacerbate the problem, most satellite networks are heavily contended, causing the users to share the available bandwidth and delaying the continuity and speed of their data transmissions.  

To remedy those issues higher data transmission speeds are required.  OGS are expected to support data links with user rates in the 10’s to 100’s of Gbps. FSO (Free Space Optics) transmission speeds are expected to reach 200 Gbps in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) DTE (Data Terminal Equipment) link applications delivering 60 TB/day total data volume; 40x faster than RF (Radio Frequency) (Ku-band) transmission.