SES Networks is using Amdocs to implement the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) on Microsoft Azure, to allow its telco customers to seamlessly extend to SES's satellite service.

Mitch Wagner, Executive Editor, Light Reading

August 20, 2019

2 Min Read
Podcast: SES Networks Takes ONAP Sky-High

SES Networks wants its operator customers to be able to forget that it flies a constellation of 70 orbiting communications satellites.

The company provides space-based data networking, used today by mobile operators for backhaul and enterprise VPN; maritime and aviation companies, including cruise ship and passenger airline operators; and government customers, who use SES for drone surveillance, environmental controls, and more.

SES wants operators to be able to connect to their satellite networks using existing management and orchestration tools, and so it's implementing the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) on Microsoft Azure, with the assistance of Amdocs.

I talked with SES CEO JP Hemingway about the company's voyage into the final frontier, and its ambitions to leverage ONAP to go beyond the network of last resort.

Listen to our conversation:

"People used to perceive satellite as a few megabits trickling through. It was expensive, the delay was terrible, and we had to fundamentally change that," Hemingway says. "We absolutely can deliver, not just a few trickling megabits, but we're delivering two gigabits in some cases to some of these cruise ships."

He adds: "When that same ship says, hey, I think I'd like to have a new piece of automation software delivered, I'd like to run a different security protocol, I'd like to enable a new application to my corporate VPN, now that we've got ONAP, we can deliver an NFV application seamlessly down onto the servers at the end of our connectivity points."

To read more about how SES is using ONAP, see: SES Takes ONAP to the Final Frontier

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About the Author(s)

Mitch Wagner

Executive Editor, Light Reading

San Diego-based Mitch Wagner is many things. As well as being "our guy" on the West Coast (of the US, not Scotland, or anywhere else with indifferent meteorological conditions), he's a husband (to his wife), dissatisfied Democrat, American (so he could be President some day), nonobservant Jew, and science fiction fan. Not necessarily in that order.

He's also one half of a special duo, along with Minnie, who is the co-habitor of the West Coast Bureau and Light Reading's primary chewer of sticks, though she is not the only one on the team who regularly munches on bark.

Wagner, whose previous positions include Editor-in-Chief at Internet Evolution and Executive Editor at InformationWeek, will be responsible for tracking and reporting on developments in Silicon Valley and other US West Coast hotspots of communications technology innovation.

Beats: Software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), IP networking, and colored foods (such as 'green rice').

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