One Modem for Both Satellite Worlds

ST Engineering iDirect has demonstrated a pilot version of the INT3000, a user equipment modem carrying both 5G NR-NTN and DVB-S2X waveforms, at the European Space Agency's 5G NTN Forum. The demonstration ran via a satellite simulator connected through the company's Intuition ground system.

Two waveforms in one terminal is a transitional product, and transitional products are usually the honest ones. DVB-S2X is the established satellite broadcast and broadband standard, deployed across existing networks and carrying the traffic that pays for them today. 5G NR-NTN is the 3GPP standard that brings satellite links into the same framework as terrestrial mobile networks, which is where the industry is heading because it lets satellite capacity be scheduled, orchestrated and billed like any other radio access network.

The migration between them will take years, and during those years an operator has to serve both. That is a difficult commercial position: build only for the new standard and you strand a working revenue base; build only for the old one and you cannot bid for anything that assumes 5G integration. A single user terminal supporting both means the customer premises equipment does not have to be replaced twice, which is what usually makes these migrations unaffordable.

For industrial users of satellite connectivity — remote sites, pipelines, marine assets, mining operations — the practical relevance is that the terminal is the part that is hard to change. Ground infrastructure and space segment can be upgraded by the operator; the dish and modem at a remote pumping station require a site visit, in a location that was chosen precisely because nobody goes there. Multi-waveform equipment extends the useful life of that installed base across a standards transition.

Vice president Shravan Gaddam framed the vision as bringing the two worlds together in a single user equipment, giving operators a practical path to evolve their networks. The company describes it as a milestone in phased multi-waveform user equipment development; no production timeline was given, which is appropriate for a pilot demonstrated against a simulator rather than live spacecraft.