Secure VSAT Communications for Remote Field Operations

The energy industry faces challenges in keeping its remote sites connected with headquarters and regional offices. With facilities and operations located in some of the most extreme and isolated areas, communications not only play a critical role in enhancing the efficiency of operations, but also serve as the only lifeline to civilization.

In addition, the energy exploration, production and service business gets more difficult every year. With easy-to-reach wells going fast, locations are getting more and more remote. Only a few specialists in the world are capable of interpreting the sophisticated data that tell companies exactly where and how deep to drill. Getting these experts to travel to more and more remote - and dangerous - locations is not practical.

Geological scans produce very large data files, so connecting by many wireless alternatives would waste too much time. Early communication options were as low tech as recording data onto diskettes and shipping them to data centers. The longer it takes for decisions to be made in the field, the longer expensive assets such as drilling rigs sit idle and unproductive. Better ways to keep the experts at home and bring the data to them were clearly needed.

Now satellite connects exploration locations in North America, South America, Africa or Russia with state-of-the-art real time centers at corporate offices and other regional decision centers around the world. There, experts can interpret incoming data and direct drillers in virtual real time to the locations that will bring the biggest yields.

The Case of Worldwide Oil & Gas Services Provider CapRock Communications

CapRock Communications, a provider of satellite communications including data, voice and video for harsh and remote locations, designed its IPxpress™ networking architecture to meet the specific needs of customers with mobile operations in many remote locations. A key feature of IPxpress, is that it enables personnel to move from one site to another while their IP addresses, and even VoIP telephone numbers, “follow” them to the new locations. The network design eliminates the hassle of reconfiguring network parameters such as IP addresses at each location, and results in easy plug and play setup and operation.

To make this service a reality, CapRock needed a method to offer high-speed services to many customers from a single VSAT hub. With its high-speed return channel, ability to support hundreds or thousands of locations, and advanced “VLAN tagging” feature, LinkStar® broadband VSATs have become the standard networking system for CapRock. VLAN tagging builds on standard IP routing and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technologies, to provide each customer with their own custom level of security and service, opening up many options.

“The VLAN tagging feature in LinkStar really positions us to meet our customers’ needs for privacy, security, and quality of service as they push into more remote locations around the world,” said Randy Neck, VP Marketing at CapRock.
In the past these networks were implemented with point-to-point satellite communications links, but that is a very inefficient and expensive way to communicate . CapRock has implemented its IPxpress service using the advanced LinkStar “star” (point-to-multipoint) architecture networking system. Several advantages make the case for the value of new, advanced VSAT systems that control many terminals from a central hub:

• Easy installation and commissioning features enabling non-satellite technicians to move terminals into place and be up and running in 20 to 30 minutes at any location
• Hub-based networks can grow to service far larger networks. The best of these systems should have the capacity to grow to as many as 10,000 remote terminals.
  
• There are now star architecture VSAT systems that can send data from remote sites back to the hub at very high rates, with maximums of 3 Mbps and more. CapRock customers have a choice of 144 kbps, 256 kbps, 384 kbps, or 512 kbps. The high-speed return channel is very important in these networks where most data flows from remote sites to the hub, reversing the typical star network traffic pattern.
• Advanced satellite modems now include the latest advances in Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology to provide secure isolation and correct routing of customer data traffic within the network. VLAN tagging enables a service provider to provide many different customers with their own virtual private networks (VPNs) from a single satellite hub installation. These “multi-tenant” VPNs are completely secure from other shared-hub customers and automatically authorize users as they log in and request access to network resources.

DVB-S2 Standard Increases Bandwidth Efficiency Even More

Since CapRock implemented its system, additional new technology has become available that lowers the cost of remote satellite communications even more. The new S2 standard from the Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) consortium, DVB-S2, is now a featured option in a few advanced satellite network systems, including LinkStar VSATs.

DVB-S2 increases bandwidth efficiency by up to 30% compared to previous technology, including new adaptive coding modulation that further maximizes the use of valuable satellite transponder resources. The new standard also enables an increased range of applications making it ideal for oil and gas operations, as well as enterprise networking, mobile communications backhaul, forestry and mining, distance learning, and e-government.

Network operators should look for S2-capable hubs and remote terminals that are compatible with standard DVB-S systems and offer a cost effective transition to the benefits of DVB-S2. Any LinkStar system can add DVB-S2 efficiency by way of a simple software upgrade.

Satellite VSAT Systems For Secure And Easy to Use Remote Communications

Companies in the oil and gas business looking for reliability, portability, broadband data speeds, and a high level of customer satisfaction will find that VSAT satellite networking can give them what they need. Especially with the new generation of IP (Internet Protocol) satellite systems that now perform all the modern applications equally as well as terrestrial. A single satellite hub can provide multiple customers or subscribers with communications, each with a virtual private network that provides information security and access only to authorized users. In addition these networks are easier to set up and use than ever before.