Hughes Network Systems (News - Alert) has launched its new HX 5.0 broadband satellite system, a carrier-grade, versatile IP broadband platform.
Building on its previous version, this latest version offers greater scalability, performance and reliability, among other enhancements, according to company officials.
The global broadband subscribers are rapidly growing, and as a result of that there is an increasing demand for high speed broadband applications. The company is touting HX 5.0 as an ideal solution for operators that are aiming to grow their business by delivering the expanding range of broadband applications, including high-speed IP trunking, 3G/4G cellular backhaul, virtual network operator (VNO) hosting and communications on-the-move (COTM) for airborne/maritime/land.
“Hughes engineers are relentless about pushing all the envelopes of capacity, efficiency and cost -- which is evident again in our latest HX 5.0 platform, the industry's most scalable broadband satellite system with an economical gateway and wide range of high-performance remote terminals,” said Pradman Kaul, president at Hughes.
With the newest version of HX platform, operators can scale cost-effectively from a few sites to very large networks with thousands of remote terminals. Company officials said that the operators can start small and then when there is a rise in customers’ demand, they can expand, offering a mix of services such as Internet access, VoIP and video-on-demand.
The HX 5.0 features a new set of high-capacity IP servers for the hub gateway, with throughputs of up to 40 Mbps. Also, the router software has been upgraded in this new version. Company officials said that this newest platform enables individual remote terminals to support throughputs of 20 Mbps for TCP-processed traffic running through the routers.
Moreover, the HX 5.0 introduces new byte-level compression (BLC), which enables optimization of network efficiency as well as reduces the bandwidth needs of network traffic by up to 50 percent. Harnessing the data caching and powerful algorithms, BLC compression exploits duplication of byte sequences in a data stream, according to company officials.
In addition, the HX 5.0 comes with two new quality of service (QoS) features -- a weighted fair queuing (WFQ) feature and differentiated service plans (DSPs). Company officials said that WFQ determines how much bandwidth to allocate users in the event of congestion or high demand, while DSPs enable operators to adjust plans at the time of congestion.
This latest version of the HX also offers two forms of diversity, which facilitates multi-spectrum deployment, such as Ka- and Ku-band. These forms are gateway RFT diversity and full gateway diversity.
To overcome rain fade, the gateway RFT diversity routes traffic to a secondary RFT facility and there is only a momentary interruption in user data flow, company officials said. And, if there is a primary network outage, the full gateway diversity remote terminals are automatically migrated to a secondary network.
Recently, Inmarsat (News - Alert) signed a contract with Hughes Network Systems to manufacture the new Low Profile BGAN terminal, which is expected to equip police forces and other government departments around the world with a discreet communications terminal.