At last year’s CABSAT, we planned and hosted two panel sessions as part of the SatExpo Summit. This year, we were asked to host an entire day. With so many hot topics impacting the industry right now, there certainly wasn’t a shortage of things to discuss. Despite a broad range of topics from digital transformation,  through spectrum management to diversity, there were a few key themes that emerged and were apparent for all of these. 

Industry-wide collaboration 

Collaboration is of course not new to SIG, it is the very cornerstone of the group’s remit, bringing together different people from throughout the industry to work together to solve challenges. It was therefore encouraging to hear that repeated for every single topic as a fundamental requirement. The first session of the day, moderated by Alexander Jeuck of ICT & SpaceTech International, tackled digital transformation. The panel agreed that digitisation is happening and is necessary but we still need a lot to happen before we truly get there. A big part of that will be the need for the industry to work together to build the different pieces of the puzzle. 

Spectrum management is another area where collaboration is key. Virgil Labrador, Editor-in-Chief of Satellite Markets and Research led the panel which discussed the need for the satellite companies, both operators and vendors, to work together to build solutions. This is about RFI, in the same way SIG has been doing for many years but also for debris mitigation. Groups like the Space Data Association are of course pivotal here. 

Collaboration is also needed for antenna approvals. Moderated by Randall Barney of the World Teleport Association, the panel discussed the challenge of meeting different requirements for testing from each operator. The Satellite Operators Minimum Antenna Performance (SOMAP) has made big strides in pushing towards industry-wide agreement on these requirements, but with each development this adds complexity that still needs to be addressed. 

Our Managing Director, Helen Weedon, moderated an all-female panel on diversity. While there was general agreement that the industry is moving in the right direction, it is clear there is still a long way to go before we can have a truly diverse industry. The collaboration theme emerged once again, with a consensus that groups such as SSPI-WISE fulfil an important role for empowering women in the industry. It was also clear that everyone has a role to play here. Senior Management should be looking at diversity policies, journalists have a role to give a voice to minority groups within the industry, and everyone in the industry has a role to help strengthen that and empower others. 

The need for more standards 

Mentioning standards often gets an eye roll. Of course, too many standards and standards that are too prescriptive can hamper innovation. At the same time, with so many different tools emerging, it is really important that we can enable interoperability and the only way to do that effectively is by ensuring we have some level of standardisation. 

For virtualisation, that is emerging in the form of an open, interoperable Digital IF/RF standard being developed by the Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability (DIFI) Consortium. There was a lot of talk about the need for a standardised approach when it comes to antenna approvals. As mentioned above, SOMAP is getting us towards that but there is some work still to be done and the changing environment is making that all the more complex. If we can get agreement and transparency from operators, manufacturers could eventually test once and be accepted by all. 

Learn from other industries 

The satellite industry is unique in many ways but many of our challenges are the same as being faced by other sectors. As highlighted in the panel on digital transformation, we are not the first industry to move to a cloud-based approach. We also had a panel discussing AI and Automation where this was highlighted. Many industries have already implemented AI. Also, one of the biggest parts of any AI implementation is of course the data, how it is stored, and how it is used. This is something others have already been doing and we should benefit from those lessons learnt when starting this journey. 

Innovation is happening 

It was reassuring to see the huge level of innovation already happening within the industry to tackle all of these challenges. Satcoms has certainly not stood still and there are so many new solutions being developed and launched to help evolve the industry into a new era. From ways to virtualise the ground segment to better monitoring tools to spot interference and new ways to test antennas. There are also a number of ways that AI is being deployed to improve processes and customer service. Our last panel of the day, moderated by Arabsat’s Yasir Hassan, talked about the impact of 5G and 6G and highlighted cancellation tools and techniques that are already having a huge effect on mitigating these. 

It was also clear however that we will need more innovation, especially as the environment continues to evolve, with multi-orbit networks and digital ground infrastructures. 

At SIG, we are the glue that binds that all together by providing a platform for the technical operations people to collaborate. We offer a unique forum where operators can discuss their current, and future challenges, and brainstorm solutions with their peers. For solution providers, this provides unrivalled insights into customer pain points so they can develop the right tools to mitigate these. Bringing the industry together at a very technical level can also help with determining what standards are needed and how they should be formulated to be useful without hampering innovation. 

Join us at our next workshop on 28th-29th June at QuadSAT in Odense, Denmark, and be part of the conversation, and the solution.