Viasat are helping to enhance NATO satellite communications

Viasat has told MONS, via a written statement that it expects to complete a raft of enhancements for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Satellite Communications (SATCOM) capabilities by early 2019. Although it cannot reveal the location of such facilities, the company disclosed that it was modernising several satellite control stations used by the alliance to provide “increased mission capability.”

The enhancements take the form of a software upgrade which will transition the Ultra High Frequency (300 megahertz to three gigahertz) SATCOM capabilities used by NATO from their current DAMA (Demand Assigned Multiple Access) architectures to Integrated Waveform protocols. What that means in practice is that the alliance’s current UHF SATCOM capabilities will in effect double, the statement continued “enabling cellphone-like calling with less latency and better voice quality.” This will be realised via the implementation of the company’s VISION service “which maximises channel efficiency and provides users with reliable voice and data connections, supporting better voice quality and higher data throughput.”

Thomas Withington