Asia-Pacific Broadcasting (APB) Satellite Special 2018 | Page 9

HTS a hit in Asia-Pacific
focus on training and equipment type
approvals from the Global VSAT Forum
(GVF). Both are crucial to reducing
interference through human error and
poor equipment.
The focus for IRG has been on
technology and innovation to produce
better tools and keeping the focus on
using automation technology to reduce
the human interaction needed, and thus
reducing the risk of human error.
Technology milestones
Carrier ID (CID) is one of the most
effective ways to reduce interference, as
it means that when interference occurs,
and it will, you can easily see where it is
coming from so that steps can be quickly
taken to resolve it. I was involved at
the very beginning with developing the
original CID technology. Comtech EF
Data went one better by developing it in
a way that the carrier information could
be carried resiliently under the noise
floor.
Crucially, this meant services no
longer need to be interrupted to check
the ID. With that technology now
available, I wanted to ensure firstly that
all manufacturers were implementing
CID in all products and that they were
using that new version. Therefore, my
first push when I took over as executive
director in 2011 was to see Carrier ID
become a standard. After many meetings
and much pushing, we managed it and
now all new modulators and encoders
come with the new CID technology.
The next task is to have it switched on
as default so that a user must actively
switch it off if they do not need it, rather
than the other way around.
The other major technology milestone
was with VSAT interference, something
that is widely reported to account for
the largest percentage of downtime
due to interference. The main problem
has historically been the lack of a way
to identify the interferer. To this end,
the SatGuard solution from Kratos has
revolutionised this area and operators
have reported time to resolution has
dropped from hours, weeks, months to,
in many cases, a matter of minutes.
And, most importantly, our
members and other suppliers have
been adding more resilient technology
to mitigate many forms of interference
automatically and built this into their
products based on the awareness gained
from the group’s work. This has been
truly astounding.
So, what’s next?
The past 20 years has been eventful
and we have certainly made some
considerable headway, both in terms
of raising the awareness of interference
and in terms of encouraging technology
developments that go a long way to
eradicating the problem. Now, with
more complex communication systems
 Carrier ID (CID)
is one of the
most effective
ways to reduce
interference, as
it means that
when interference
occurs, and it will,
you can easily see
where it is coming
from so that steps
can be quickly taken to resolve it. 
— Martin Coleman, Executive Director,
Satellite Interference Reduction Group
and an APB Panellist
soon to become the norm, we are looking
into how machine learning and artificial
intelligence (AI) can help us better
manage these complex networks of the
future. If used well, these technologies
are likely to improve the overall efficiency
of satellite communications, making for
error-free and cost-efficient processes
and workflows, with the added benefit of
significantly reducing interference.
An
Supplement
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