Driven by four factors, the development of satellite Internet is imperative.
Note: The original text is open source**".China's satellite Internet is facing the growth period of "breaking the cocoon into a butterfly".Analyst:Jiang Ying
On the first day of the new year, Xiaomi officially announced the release time of the new flagship model Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
As a product that takes photography as a selling point, Ultra has always represented the strongest in Xiaomi's digital series, and this time, in addition to full image quality, Xiaomi 14 Ultra will also become Xiaomi's first product to support satellite communication.
Following Huawei and Apple brought the concept of "satellite communication" to the fire, other mobile phone manufacturers have officially announced their satellite communication technology. According to the latest news revealed by the well-known digital blogger "Digital Chat Station", most of the new flagships in the next are arranged with satellite communication functions.
As a supporting industry behind satellite communication, the rapid growth of the satellite Internet industry in recent years has laid the foundation for the popularization of mobile phone satellite communication functions. In addition to providing services to mobile phone end users, satellite Internet also provides business value to many industries.
In the recent open source ** release entitled ".China's satellite Internet is facing the growth period of "breaking the cocoon into a butterfly".Analysts from:Industry status, industry applications, domestic and foreign casesThe latest progress of the development of China's satellite Internet industry was introduced from many perspectives.
The following are excerpts from the highlights of the report:
By definition,Satellite InternetIt is the Internet based on satellite communication, Europe and the United States take the lead, and China will include satellite Internet in the new infrastructure category for the first time in 2020, rising to a national strategic project.
Recently,The domestic satellite Internet industry continues to catalyze, including:
1. China's satellite Internet test satellites have been launched one after another.
2. Many places in China support the development of satellite Internet, and industrial policies have been continuously improved.
3. The domestic rocket launch conditions continue to mature, and the bottleneck of transportation capacity is expected to usher in a breakthrough.
4. The terminal application continues to be popularized, and the construction of satellite communication is accelerated.
5. The development of Starlink is growing day by day, and the construction of overseas satellite Internet is in full swing.
Analysts believe:Satellite Internet is expected to usher in an important period of historical development opportunities for the market to "break the cocoon" and the industrial chain to "become a butterfly".
With the development of aerospace technology, products and services related to the satellite industry have been widely used in various industries, including satellite communications, satellite navigation, satellite remote sensing, etc.
Satellite Internet is an Internet based on satellite communication, which is one of the important supplements to traditional terrestrial communication. According to theResearch on the development of China's satellite Internet industry in "new infrastructure".Satellite Internet forms a large-scale network through a certain number of satellites, so as to radiate the world, build a large satellite system with real-time information processing capabilities, and is an emerging network that can complete broadband Internet access services to ground and air terminals.
In terms of specific characteristics, satellite Internet has the advantages of wide coverage, low latency and low cost, especially suitable for remote areas such as oceans, deserts and mountainous areas without base station coverage, and can be used as an important supplement to traditional terrestrial communication, and is expected to become one of the mainstream communication methods in the future (especially 6G).
From the perspective of development history, satellite Internet has undergone nearly 40 years of development compared with terrestrial communicationThree phases
The stage of competition with terrestrial communication networks (80s of the 20th century, 2000).: Represented by Motorola's "Iridium" constellation;
Replenishment phase of terrestrial communication networks (2000-2014).: represented by New Iridium, Global Star, and Orbital Communications;
Convergence with terrestrial communication networks (2014-present).: Represented by OneWeb, SpaceX, etc.
The report points out that with the further improvement of the working frequency band of satellites and the continuous development in the direction of high throughput, the construction of satellite Internet has gradually entered the era of broadband Internet.
fromIndustrial chain structureSatellite Internet is mainly composed ofInfrastructure construction, satellite internet operations, and end-usersIt is composed of three major parts, the most core of which is:Satellite manufacturing, satellite launch, ground equipment, satellite operation and servicesFour major links.
Similar to the traditional satellite communication industry, satellite Internet can be divided into:Upstream, midstream, downstream
Among them,Upstream of the industrial chainIncluding satellite manufacturing, satellite launch, ground infrastructure and other links, the infrastructure of satellite communication has been built to meet the basic conditions of satellite communication;
Midstream of the industrial chainIt is a satellite communication operator, proposing satellite solution services, resource services, product services, etc., aiming to meet the satellite communication needs of customers;
WhileDownstream of the industrial chainfor the end user of satellite Internet.
Analysts believe:At present, the satellite Internet is mainly focused on the infrastructure construction of the space segment and the ground segment, and the upstream satellite manufacturing, satellite launch and ground equipment construction have become the focus of attention.
For China's satellite Internet, although it started late, it has developed rapidly, and since 2017, a number of low-earth orbit satellite constellation plans have been launched one after another, mainly including:Xingyun Project, Hongyan Constellation, Hongyun Project, Celestial ConstellationWait.
In order to vigorously develop the application of satellite Internet, it is necessary to achieve wide coverage, low latency, large bandwidth, and low-cost connection of satellite Internet.
Therefore, the current key mainstream technologies focus on ultra-large capacity, networking optimization, multi-network integration, and efficient operation and control, and are generally positiveLow-orbit, broadband, inter-satellite networking, and satellite-ground integrationdirection.
(1) Low orbit
Compared with traditional high-orbit communication satellites, low-orbit satellite constellations have become the development choice of the satellite Internet industry. To put it simply, low-orbit satellites are suitable for the development of satellite Internet services due to their small transmission delay, low link loss, flexible launch, rich application scenarios, and low overall manufacturing cost.
In addition, on behalf of the constellation, the low-orbit satellite constellation is developing towards scale. According to statistics, the existing low-orbit mega constellation plans include: Starlink, OneWeb and Kuiper.
Among them, the StarLink plan was proposed by SpaceX, benefiting from leading technologies such as mass satellite manufacturing, rocket reuse, and multi-satellite launch with one arrow, StarLink has become a leader in the emerging low-orbit constellation, and the total number of satellites in its full version of the StarLink plan will reach 12,000, and the long-term plan will reach 42,000.
On the other hand, with the rapid development and popularization of low-earth orbit constellations, a new business format of competition and joint coexistence of high, medium and low orbit is gradually taking shape. In the future, it is expected to realize the coordinated development of high-orbit satellites and low-orbit constellations, adopt the method of on-demand construction, and give full play to the complementary advantages of high-orbit and low-orbit systems in terms of coverage and capacity.
(2) Broadband
There is a strong demand for high-bandwidth frequency track resources, and countries compete to deploy high-band spectrum. The KA band has become the focus of satellite Internet development, and it is developing towards high-frequency Q V.
The satellite communication industry often divides the frequency bands above UHF into L (1-2GHz), S (2-4GHz), C (4-7GHz), X (7-12GHz), KU (12-18GHz), and KA (26.).5-40GHz) and other frequency bands. The higher the frequency band, the more bandwidth resources it has, and the more service capacity it can support.
Of these, less than 2The L and S bands of 5GHz are mainly used for applications such as satellite mobile communications, satellite radiodetermination, and satellite TT&C links. The C and Ku bands are mainly used for fixed-satellite service communications and are nearly saturated.
The available bandwidth of the Ka band is up to 35GHz, because the wavelength of the KA band is similar to the diameter of raindrops, is more susceptible to weather than the KA band, and the rain attenuation is the most serious, but its larger working bandwidth, higher signal strength, smaller antenna aperture, better directivity and gain effect and other advantages, so that it can provide a new means for a variety of new services, has become the preferred frequency band for high-throughput satellites, and resources are increasingly tight.
In order to meet the increasing demand for frequency orbit resources, the industry has begun to develop higher frequency band resources such as Q (36-46GHz) and V (46-56GHz).
(3) Inter-satellite networking
At present, most of the emerging megaconstellations have on-board processing power, which can parse, store, and ** the received data packets, and is not limited to the transparent mode of operation.
In satellite internet, the links between satellites are calledInter-SatelliteLink (ISL).
Analysts believe that the introduction of inter-satellite links has the following advantages:
1) Expanded coverage of the system;
2) Reduce transmission delay and meet the QoS requirements of multi-first-time services;
3) make the LEO mobile satellite communication system less dependent on the terrestrial network, and be more flexible and convenient for routing and network management;
4) reduce the number of ground information customs, which can greatly reduce the complexity and investment of the ground section;
5) It can be independently networked, and the satellite network does not depend on the ground network to provide communication services, as a backup of the ground network;
6) It can solve the roaming problem of terrestrial cellular networks to a certain extent.
In order to meet the large traffic volume of the mobile satellite communication system, the inter-satellite link is bound to use a higher working frequency band or a laser interstellar link. At present, satellite laser communication is developing towards standardization, compatibility, networking and commercialization. Laser terminal products are developing in the direction of flexibility and modularization.
(4) Satellite-ground integration
As the large-scale commercial use of global 5G networks continues to advance, the evolution of satellite-ground convergence has shifted from 5G system integration to 6G system integration. With the development and evolution of 6G, the 6G-oriented satellite-ground integration system will realize the integration of satellites and ground and provide imperceptible consistent services.
At present, 5G network coverage is still centered on base stations, and there are still a large number of communication blind spots in deserts, uninhabited areas, oceans and other areas not covered by base stations.
LEO satellite communication is oriented to specific regions, specific user groups and specific applications, and has more advantages for broadband interconnection and communication in low-density user access scenarios, especially the low-cost advantage when access points are scattered, and 5G complements each other.
It is worth mentioning that at present, the global 6G technology research is in the exploration and initial stage, the technical route is not clear, and the key indicators and application scenarios have not yet been uniformly defined, and it is in the stage of "scenario mining" and "technology search".
Despite this, 6G core technology has been included in the innovation strategy of many countries, and has become a high-tech field in the science and technology game of major countries and a strategic commanding heights for global occupation.
The early development of the satellite Internet industry mainly benefits from the maturity of technology, the competition of countries for scarce frequency and orbit resources, and the military value, and the later development mainly benefits from the potential of commercial value
The technology is gradually maturingThe related technologies of low-orbit satellite constellations continue to develop and mature, especially as a small satellite platform that can be modularized and mass-produced, and the rocket launch technology of "one arrow with multiple satellites" and "launchable rockets" continues to mature, effectively reducing the cost of satellite Internet construction;
Track resources are scarceAs the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) stipulates that the acquisition of orbit and frequency band resources follows the principle of "first come, first served", the KU and KA communication frequency band resources mainly used by low-orbit satellites are gradually becoming saturated, and the competition for space resources is urgent.
Military significanceA number of low-orbit Internet satellite systems such as Starlink can not only provide broadband low-cost, global coverage of Internet services, if applied to the military field, thanks to its global high-bandwidth beam coverage, will greatly enhance the military's information capabilities, has important military value.
Business value potentialAs an effective supplement to the terrestrial communication system and an important part of 6G in the future, satellite Internet has a broad downstream application market and great commercial potential and prospects with the advantages of wide coverage, low latency, low cost and large broadband Internet access.
China has always attached great importance to the construction of space infrastructure, and has become the fifth country to independently launch satellites into space, the third country to master satellite technology, and the fifth country to independently develop and launch geostationary orbit communication satellites.
However, with the inclusion of satellite Internet in new infrastructure, analysts believe that China's satellite Internet market is expected to usher in an important period of historical development opportunities, includingPolicy side("New Infrastructure"),On the technical side(Such as high-throughput satellites in satellite manufacturing, on-board technology, inter-satellite link technology, etc., multi-satellite and rockets in the launch link) andCapital side(Private capital, market financing).
The report pointed out that at present, domestic private capital and social forces are participating in the commercial aerospace field in an orderly manner, and from the analysis of the main products of financing enterprises from 2019 to 2022, the satellite manufacturing field has always been an investment hotspot in the satellite Internet industry. In 2021, investment events in the field of satellite manufacturing accounted for more than 50% of the total investment events.
Europe and the United States represent constellationsStarlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, etc.
Domestic representative constellations: Space-ground integrated information network project, Hongyan constellation, Hongyun constellation, etc.
Title source: Internet.