A world increasingly ‘on the move’ demands constant connectivity anywhere on the planet, regardless. How can that be made possible?
In the era of unparalleled global communications, staying connected is more critical than ever, no matter where you are. Whether you’re navigating urban jungles or exploring ‘off-grid’, away from the urban infrastructure, maintaining a strong and stable data connection can be a formidable task.
In this article, Tristan Wood, founder of Livewire Digital, explores the power of hybrid networking and how it can help people and machines constantly on the move to stay connected in even the most rugged and remote environments.
Communications on the move can present many challenges, especially when there is a need to operate over large, diverse geographical areas or across the global theatre. Urban canyons in major cities dominated by dense concrete structures can render satellite links inoperative, whilst cellular coverage can be limited outside the main conurbations, even in the most developed economies. Add to this the exponential demand for connectivity of new and emerging technologies, such as drones, machine to machine (M2M) and autonomous vehicles and transport, and it’s not difficult to see how the orthodoxy of today’s conventional infrastructure – and business models – are being challenged.
The rapid, continuous, and ubiquitous transfer of data today is permeating every aspect of modern life, dominated by countless connectivity-dependent services. Defence, space, connected and autonomous craft, emergency services, telehealth, AI and machine-learning, and a host of other applications demand not just a connection, but an ‘intelligent connection’, and this is opening up considerable opportunities for telecommunications, OEM and other technology-led businesses to transform their operations and consumer facing services.
In the aviation industry, aided by artificial intelligence, power-by-the-hour, automation, and security are reshaping the entire industry landscape, including its value chain and interdependent business models. IoT and Industry 4.0 are transforming the productivity of OEMs as well as the maintenance and repair operations (MROs), ushering the emergence of new paradigms, from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), to such as aircraft as a service (AaaS) and smart aircraft and mobility, forcing players to scale up and/or hasten increasing horizontal consolidation of the sector.
To such effect, that in the automotive sector, connected vehicles and the shift to electric and autonomous cars heralds a fully digitalised world, with colossal implications for its ecosystem and industrial base. Cars are increasingly becoming pre-configured for incremental upgrades via over -the-air (OTA) systems throughout the lifecycle of a vehicle; just look at how Tesla in barely a decade has led the revolution towards “software-defined vehicles”. It has almost independently set the new standard in automotives where the value of a vehicle’s software potentially exceeds that of hardware, by evolving cars from essentially electro-mechanical platforms to intelligent, upgradeable and secure systems.
Being able to integrate existing with future connectivity services is a powerful proposition that can enable more efficient systems, workflows, and people, and there are many underlying communication technologies – and even more service providers – willing to pick up this baton.
However, despite recent advances in telecommunications technology – from 5G cellular services and disruptive low-cost LEO satellite services – there is no single network service that can address the exponential demand for seamless connectivity on the move. Nor is there any provider which can offer a single comprehensive solution that can address coverage, bandwidth, reliability and most importantly cost.
The concept of agnostically making use of any network, based on location, cost or quality of service, should dramatically reduce the impact of the problem, and yet awareness and application of ‘bonding’ technology is nowhere near where it needs to be as machines and people demand ever faster ‘always-on’ connectivity.
Away from conventional cellular networks, fixed satellite architecture has been a primary broadcast medium for mass markets and geographic reach, and only providing rapid deployment in emergency situations and in diverse remote area applications, including those of natural disasters. Satellite communications on-the-move (COTM) and communications-on-the-pause (COTP) has harnessed ever evolving smart antennae design and stimulating the use of multi-channel systems to improve resilience and to optimise performance. Yet, because of its premium infrastructure, satellite communication can be perceived to be very expensive when compared with other types of broadband that offer similar or faster speeds. The capacity for selective routing to satellite networks, alongside the ability to combine this with the power of all other available networks lies at the heart of hybrid connectivity, and the many advantages it can offer.
At the core of hybrid is SD-WAN – a technology that uses software-defined networking concepts to distribute network traffic across a wide area network, or WAN. This architecture creates a virtual overlay that bonds underlying private or public WAN connections, such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), internet broadband, fibre, wireless or LTE. As a result, hybrid SD-WAN networking can agnostically combine and transition between these networks.
In truly hybrid – or ‘heterogeneous’ – networks, multiple network technologies therefore have to seamlessly work together, actively sharing the load and resources, by combining, and binding together a variety of bearers from cellular and LTE, to satellite and WiFi into a single ‘pipe’. In this way, it can deliver a faster and, crucially, more reliable service.
In practice, a hybrid platform goes several stages further than that, adapting to a range of other variables, depending upon each bearer’s performance and any other environmental conditions affecting it at any one moment in time, in order to optimise performance and reduce costs, such as restricting the use expensive or inefficient bearers.
In a similar way to the least cost routing of voice calls, parameters can be set to allow for the most cost-effective bearer to be used if it’s good enough; for instance, cellular can take preference over satellite if the performance is adequate, thus reducing the costs of always using satellite. The same principle must be applied to the handling of Quality of Service (QoS), to ensure the performance of critical applications in the face of limited network capacity, rapid variations in bandwidth and latency.
A more in-depth analysis of hybrid connectivity and its impact on markets, far beyond just the telecommunications industry, can be found in Livewire Digital’s White Paper, The Future is Hybrid Connectivity, published in recently.
Livewire Digital’s research and development of hybrid communications started in 2012 as part of a situational awareness project for the European Space Agency. To achieve full hybrid connectivity, RazorLink was developed, as an industry-first SDN solution that seamlessly and dynamically bonds any number of bearers, from satellite, cellular, Point to Point radio, Wi-Fi and terrestrial services in line with user-defined objectives and prevailing conditions.
For instance, continuous and fast Internet connectivity can deliver significant benefits to rail operators and its passengers. Designed to meet the challenges presented by a fast-moving train traveling through different areas of network coverage, smart networking enables a dynamic connection to various operators using a range of underlying communication technologies such as 3G, 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi and satellite.
Likewise, the bonding and optimisation of the communications path can allow drones to deliver live low-latency video and advanced 3D world sensing & mapping data. This is already being deployed with great success in the UK police and first responder markets.
Meanwhile, in maritime settings, where most ocean-going vessels access satellite communications for telephone and data services, there is a growing need for ‘always on’ connected services for engineer management and security applications. Third-party products can assist to a degree by allowing a vessel to select a particular service, but only limited services can be used at any time and each switchover necessitates many on-board applications to re-establish their links with the shore. With more services, a higher demand for bandwidth, and with a growing significant pressure on cost, this is no longer a viable approach. To address these challenges true hybrid connectivity, improving the performance of applications over high latency satellite, poor quality cellular coverage and intermittent Wi-Fi links is the way to the future.
Back on land, and in conurbations especially, the evolution of connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) is ushering in a new era of transportation, promising safer roads, efficient mobility, and unparalleled convenience. However, at the heart of this transformation lies a critical technological need—the seamless integration of multiple network technologies – a true Hybrid Network.
With CAVs, a truly robust communication infrastructure is not just a necessity; it’s the lifeline ensuring these vehicles navigate, operate, and communicate flawlessly across varied terrains and conditions. Imagine a scenario where a train, guided by well-defined tracks, faces challenges in maintaining consistent connectivity. Now, magnify this complexity many times over for autonomous vehicles, crossing borders, and dealing with a wide variety of infrastructure and signals.
As automotive autonomy advances, the roadmap for CAVs demands not just innovation but adaptability. Manufacturers must design flexible architectures that accommodate increasing bandwidths and actively support distributed hybrid network structures.
As demand for reliable connectivity in global mobility markets, such as aviation – manned and unmanned – and maritime, continues to grow, peak-time capacity and multi-dimensional networks that can draw upon the right options at the right time are more important than ever. Growing in importance at a rapid pace – moving from tactical to strategic investment decisions.
Ubiquitous connectivity on the move is set to become the default minimum for an increasingly interconnected world, in business, government, for those on the move, and in the home. To date, hybrid connectivity solutions have been based on switching or failover using classic routing techniques that operate well over fixed infrastructure. Applying this technique to connectivity on the move, where the availability and characteristics of networks change rapidly, resulting in intermittent connectivity, poor performance and difficulty in scaling, will no longer be acceptable, and no longer accepted by consumers and regulators. A technology that can seamlessly combine multiple networks, such as 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi and LEO satellite connections, into one fast, secure and highly resilient service is already here. It is a ‘true hybrid’ solution, and is being developed here in the UK for a rapidly changing world.