IP: "First" Satellite-Based OC-3

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Daily News
First Satellite-Based OC-3
By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes.
September 04, 1999


UUNet and ICG Satellite Services have teamed up to launch the world's 
first commercial satellite-fed OC-3 service.
OC-3 connections operate at around 155.5 megabits per second (Mbps) 
simplex, which means that UUNet will be able to provide wideband 
Internet feeds across the Intelsat 605, 801 and 805 satellites from 
its New Jersey teleport.
Nancy Price, a spokesperson for ICG, told Newsbytes that test 
transmissions on the satellite-fed OC-3 service have already taken 
place between the US and South America.

The full service, she said, will allow UUNet to offer wideband 
connections into the US Internet backbone from both South America and 
Europe.

The satellite connection has an outbound (i.e. from the US) 
transmission rate of 155.5 Mbps with an option of 1 to 45 Mbps for 
the return service.

UUNet says that the main reason for developing the new service was to 
maximize, to the greatest extent, both the amount of data rate per 
unit of satellite space segment and also the effective Internet 
throughput of the service.
In tests, ICG says it achieved a 98.5 percent throughput on the 
asymmetric serve, and a full 155.5 Mbps transmission within 72 
megahertz (MHz) of satellite space.

Jongsoo Kim, ICG Satellite Service's engineer manager, said that 
these levels of throughput are an achievement that is currently 
unmatched by any other operational satellite asymmetric design.

The result, he said, will be an extremely efficient service that 
significantly reduces ICG customers' international circuit costs.

UUNet says that, because its Holmdel teleport satellite earth station 
in New Jersey is incorporated in the North American Internet backbone 
at OC-12 speeds, the ICG satellite connection will offer European and 
South American customers access to the US Internet backbone at the 
fastest possible speeds