This page covers advantages and disadvantages of Satellite Communication. It mentions benefits or advantages of satellite communication and drawbacks or disadvantages of satellite communication.
Introduction : As we know satellite communication uses satellite placed above earth for communication by VSATs placed on the earth. It is also used for TV broadcasting. Satellites uses microwave frequencies for communication with each other using inter-satellite links and with earth stations or VSATs. There are different types of satellite based on applications and their orbits.
The figure-1 depicts typical satellite satellite. As shown it consists of space segment, ground segment and TT&C (Tracking Telemetry & command station OR satellite control center).
The duplexing techniques such as FDD/TDD and multiple access techniques such as FDMA/TDMA/CDMA are used to separate signals. This will help in efficient usage of satellite transponder bandwidth. VSAT basics and satellite basics for more information.
Advantages of Satellite Communication
Following are the advantages of Satellite Communication:
It is used for mobile and wireless communication applications independent of location.
It covers wide area of the earth hence entire country or region can be covered with just one satellite.
It provides wider bandwidth based on SCPC or MCPC allocation types.
It co-exists with terrestrial microwave line of sight communication.
It is easy to install and manage the ground station sites.
It does not incur much of the costs per VSAT site.
It is used for voice, data, video and any other information transmission. Satellite system can be interfaced with internet infrastructure to obtain internet service. It is also used for GPS applications in various mobile devices for location determination.
It is easy to obtain service from one single provider and uniform service is available.
It has small fading margin on the order of about 3dB.
It is used in wide variety of applications which include weather forecasting, radio/TV signal broadcasting, gathering intelligence in military, navigation of ships and aircrafts, global mobile communication, connecting remote areas etc.
LEO and MEO satellite types have lower propagation delay and lower losses compare to GEO satellite. This will help them to be used for global coverage.
Disadvantages of Satellite Communication
Following are the disadvantages of Satellite Communication:
Satellite manufacturing requires more time. Moreover satellite design and development requires higher cost.
Satellite once launched, requires to be monitored and controlled on regular periods so that it remains in the orbit.
Satellite has life which is about 12-15 years. Due to this fact, another launch has to be planned before it becomes un-operational.
Redundant components are used in the network design. This incur more cost in the installation phase.
In the case of LEO/MEO, large number of satellites are needed to cover radius of earth. Moreover satellite visibility from earth is for very short duration which requires fast satellite to satellite handover. This makes system very complex.
Conclusion: In order to understand advantages of satellite communication and disadvantages of satellite communication, one has to understand satellite communication basics. Refer Satellite tutorial >> which covers everything on satellite including satellite structure, bands, orbits, types, configuration, applications and more.
Satellite Communication RELATED LINKS
Satellite tutorial main page About satellite Bands Parts Orbits Services Types capacity allocations network configurations Applications Satellite TTC Remote sensing VSAT basics LEO MEO GEO
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