At the IoT Tech Expo Europe, Amine El Ammari, VP of Global Business Development at Thuraya, gave a fascinating presentation on how satellites enable genuinely global connection.
In the satellite market, Thuraya is a major player and one of the top 10 operators globally. The business offers satellite services to more than 150 nations, including the Middle East, Asia Pacific, Australia, and Australia.
The business is vertically integrated, handling everything from devices and end-user services to ground station gateways and satellite communication. Government organizations and businesses in the maritime, mining, energy, and other industries are among the main clientele.
El Ammari talked about how factors like orbital plane, fixed vs. mobility satellites, and frequency bands are crucial to take into account when choosing a satellite network for IoT.
“You have really good coverage and penetration, which is one of L band’s key benefits. Second, weather conditions and rain fade. “Unlike higher bands, the L band is very resistant to weather conditions,” said El Ammari.
El Ammari presented compelling evidence that the Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) is especially well suited for numerous IoT applications.
He listed the main benefits of MSS, including its ability to connect assets while they are in motion, its capacity to sustain large device growth, its redundancy as a backup for terrestrial networks, and its lack of ground stations and low infrastructure requirements. When cellular networks are down, MSS through satellite is frequently the first connection method used for disaster recovery.
Innovative use cases with Thuraya’s partners include tracking and monitoring cargo containers, guarding fence perimeters, monitoring utility power lines in challenging terrains, identifying wildfires in remote forests with AI video analytics, and remotely monitoring generators in rural settlements.
El Ammari projected that the future of IoT will depend heavily on multi network capabilities. He thinks that cellular and satellite connectivity would be combined in a single chipset for use in IoT devices in the future.
New standards like 3GPP Release 17 5G optimisation for non-terrestrial networks will make this future vision possible. Unified standards like 5G and 6G, where everything connects seamlessly via terrestrial or satellite networks, will replace proprietary technology in the future.
