Emerging Technologies Corner: KU vs KA Bandwidth - User Perspective
While many have likened the comparison of Ku-band and Ka-band to the well-known Blu-ray versus HD DVD, or VHS versus Betamax format wars of the past, our situation is not a frequency band duel to the death, and we should not even assume the winner will be one or the other. In this situation, the winner will ultimately be the consumer. The recent emergence of commercial Ka-band as a serious challenger to commercial Ku-band is not due to a specific advantage one has over another. It is actually tied more closely to the fact that the consumer’s requirements are changing and thus drawing attention to throughput limitations of existing satellite systems.
For instance, typical existing Ku-band systems were designed with wider spot beams for widely dispersed VSAT networks that primarily focused on simplicity, video teleconferencing, and reliability. These lower Ku-band frequencies required smaller margins to overcome rain fade and thus wider spot beams provided regional service at lower costs. On the other hand, wider spot beams limit frequency reutilization. This, combined with limited throughput, made these Ku-band payloads less desirable to modern high throughput users with an increased focus on mobility. Due to these existing satellite systems, consumers have developed associations with suitability of frequency bands that are not truly characteristic of the frequency band, but rather the satellite business progression.
The new Ka-band systems such as Inmarsat-5 are coming onto the market and promise to deliver substantially greater throughput than current Ku-band offerings. This fact has led some in the industry to conclude that Ka-band capacity is a superior evolution of Ku-band capacity. However, the reality is that there are high throughput Ku-band satellite systems also being developed that offer similar throughputs with smaller spot beams. With the investment in both bands, today’s debate to determine whether Ku-band or Ka-band is better continues. One thing is certain – we will continue to experience more technological advances, and satellite manufacturers will continue to launch newer, faster, stronger, and more flexible satellites. Who knows what will be ‘best’ tomorrow.
Next issue we will look at comparing MILSATCOM Ka and COMSATCOM Ka capabilities, expectations and hardware comparisons.
(Posted April 2013)
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