DW6000 enables HECL to improve user experience

Technology innovation is taking place faster than it ever did, and better products are coming into the marketplace at shorter intervals. One such product is Hughes’ Direcway DW6000 terminal. It’s really fast—and how! Rahul Neel Mani has the details

There is more good news for enterprises who want to deploy a smart broadband solution without many hassles.

Recently, Hughes Escorts Communications India (HECL), a part of Hughes Network Systems (HNS), the world’s leading provider of satellite-based broadband solutions, introduced a new member of its Direcway family of broadband terminals, the DW6000.

DW6000

The DW6000 is self-hosting, thereby eliminating the need to install any special software on customer computers. It extends the Direcway service to Apple Macintosh PCs, and thus moves beyond Windows-based systems. The new terminal incorporates an advanced, single-board architecture, and offers an Ethernet output for easy connection to LAN networks and satellite-based service activation; this eliminates the need for a terrestrial line.

In addition to high-speed Internet and intranet/VPN access, it also provides supports for all Direcway services offered to current customers; these services include content delivery, multicasting, music distribution, training, digital media streaming, and distance learning and training.

The latest generation satellite terminal of the Direcway family works on the Ku band with a small dish size of just 0.9 metres, which is very convenient to install. It provides broadband connectivity to the user with very high download and upload speeds. Direcway NoC (Network Operations Centre, with the central site called Hub) can send the outroute signal at up to speeds of 45 Mbps, while Direcway VSAT terminal (remote) can send the inroute signal at up to speeds of 256 Kbps.

“In the Indian context, the availability of Direcway services is a significant development since it offers unmatched high-speed access,” says Ashok Agarwal, senior director, operations, HECL. Though there are other high-speed options available in India (such as DSL modems, cable Internet, etc), they are limited in their capacity. On the other hand, the Direcway service offers the unique advantage of a multi-megabit multicast channel.

The company had earlier launched the DW4000, a two-way Direcway terminal having two small boxes which can offer LAN connectivity through a PC via USB port. In that case a PC was necessary; of course, this PC could be used as one of the user terminals too. However DW6000 is a standalone terminal in a single box and does not require an additional PC. “It offers one LAN port, which can be directly expanded to multiple LAN ports by adding any standard hub. It offers features such as compression, firewalling and quality of service on inbound and outbound channels,” says Agarwal.

Direcway provides a DVB (Digital Video Broadcast)-S-compliant outbound channel, which can go up to 45 Mbps, providing multimedia capabilities. On the inbound side, it uses a highly efficient contention-based inroute bandwidth allocation mechanism called ALOHA. After the inroute is allocated, data is transferred in a non-contention dynamic stream mode. DW6000 incorporates powerful features such as Performance Enhancing Proxy (PEP) with TCP Spoofing, Data/Header Compression, IP Protocol Priorities and Network Address Translation. A new feature is Turbo Page, which improves the user experience dramatically. “It has strong built-in network security comprising Triple DES encryption and the Conditional Access Control System. Users of the DW6000 can choose their options from a bouquet of service level options. They can go for flat bandwidth or for the volume-based Fair Access Control model,” informs Agarwal.

Simple

To start using the Direcway terminal, an individual user just needs a PC or notebook with minimal software such as an operating system and any other utility software that the person wants to use. A user company needs to have a small hub or a small switch on which it can provide LAN connectivity to multiple users. It costs less than Rs 1 lakh. The recurring costs depend on the level of service a customer subscribes to. “There are various pricing models available to suit the needs of both individual users and enterprise customers,” adds Agarwal.

Advantages

The DW6000 incorporates an advanced, single-board architecture offering an Ethernet output for easy connection to LAN networks and satellite-based service activation; this eliminates the need for a terrestrial line. There is no need for any additional device such as a router. It offers satellite-based Automatic Commissioning System with definable service levels. In earlier versions like DW4000 there was a need to have a dial-up connection to commission the VSAT—this need has been eliminated in the DW6000. “In countries like India where terrestrial infrastructure is still very poor in remote and difficult terrain, this feature is quite helpful and makes life simpler for both the commissioning engineer and user,” says Agarwal.

With this new terminal, HECL is now in a position to provide an easy networking solution to connect multiple computers for individual consumers as well as for enterprise customers to provide broadband access via satellite. Affirms Agarwal, “HECL has conducted tests in its lab and subsequently rolled out networks for its customers, running enterprise applications such as ERP and messaging.”

Another advantage is that the DW6000 is a self-hosted and self-booting standalone terminal. The system complies with the industry’s DVB-S standard, and therefore it is very easy to customise the wide range of outroute data rates. “There are three DVB standards for satellite, cable and terrestrial. Since Direcway is DVB-S compliant, it offers all those standard features. Being DVB-S compliant enables it to offer all standard MSPS (Mega Symbols Per Second) rates with all possible combinations of FEC (Forward Error Correction) rates,” says Agarwal. In addition, with the help of its PEP feature, its throughput can be increased very efficiently.

Conclusion

This new kid on the block will provide an excellent user experience because Direcway has Unicast, Multicast and Webcast capability. Since there are various pricing models available to suit individual needs, selection is easier. In addition to its enterprise foray, HECL is now getting into the small and medium enterprise segment. It is working on options to create multiple channels through its partners. The company is very bullish about demand for its product. It has already rolled out many customer networks, and is in the process of doing so for many more. Company sources say that since it is primarily a service company, it expects its major revenue to come from services.

rahul@expresscomputeronline.com