Modems

• ~ 4X footprint reduction near term
• ~ 4X cost reduction near term
• elimination of “barrier to entry” because difficult and costly mixed-signal IF development, L-band or otherwise, is no longer necessary for modem manufacturers to enter the market

IF switches

• no longer a “specialty item”
• massive footprint reduction, from racks to RUs
• massive cost reduction, from multiple millions to six figures
• growth in capacity and features leverages commercial Ethernet switch and IP router development

IF combining and dividing

• COTS digital computing platforms
• computational load can be drastically reduced through clever systems design of digital IF interface standard

Cabling

• coax replaced by high-speed Ethernet, twisted pair and/or digital fiber

IFL (Inter-Facility Link)

• digital fiber replaces analog fiber and fiber transceivers
• performance bottleneck eliminated (fiber transceiver dynamic range)
• subsystem is no longer needed

Digital IF to RF converter

• good systems engineering; “keep it digital until the very end”
• eliminates an entire terminal full of high-performance IF and RF appliances in favor of a single conversion point
• performance is set at that single conversion point, no cumulative degradation through distributed IF processing.

CMA (Control, Monitoring & Alarm)

• a separate M&C network may be unnecessary if CMA is run through the same Ethernet network as the Digital IF
• in which case terminal remote control over satellite becomes a simple upgrade

BIT (Built In Test): monitoring, loopback, test signal insertion, TMDE and test translation

• can all be accomplished digitally
• and with digital precision
• while lending itself to automation

Open Standardization

• leads to innovation and competition
• enables plug-and-play system compatibility

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