Satellite communications provider Comtech Telecommunications last month announced a $30 million award by technology incubator Fairwinds Technologies to supply Comtech’s troposcatter family of systems to the U.S. Army, but Comtech’s ambitions for troposcatter exceed military applications.
Troposcatter technologies work by bouncing microwave signals off the upper layers of Earth’s troposphere, enabling information to be delivered hundreds of miles over the horizon, beyond line of site, Daniel Gizinski, chief strategy officer at Melville, N.Y.-based Comtech tells Connectivity Business News in episode 15 of “The Dish” podcast.
The technology is affordable and can be set up rapidly because it doesn’t require the purchase of satellite capacity, Gizinski says.
“In the last couple of years, we started to recognize and really appreciate — from things like an in-orbit collision to, potentially, a cyberattack, to space debris catching a satellite and causing it to de-orbit — that space infrastructure is very fragile,” he says. “You simply have to have a level of redundancy available.”
While low Earth orbit constellations are often associated with low latency, troposcatter can offer even lower latency because of its closeness to Earth, Gizinski says.
“It’s even better if you don’t have to go to that 500- to 800-kilometer range in low Earth orbit. You’re simply bouncing off of the troposphere or diffracting over natural terrain,” he says.
Troposcatter systems also fare better than satellites in difficult atmospheric conditions like rain or a sandstorm, Gizinski tells CBN.
“Working in conjunction with a satellite system, troposcatter is able to pick up the slack that’s created by an interference event in the atmosphere and raise a higher level of throughput,” he says, adding that this makes the tech ideal for military communications as well as applications such as disaster relief and other situations in which satellite and cellular service may not be available.
Listen as Gizinski discusses Comtech’s (NASDAQ: CMTL) troposcatter tech, the importance of technological redundancy in communications and the company’s initiatives toward increasing digital equity across the globe.
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