The Digital Interface Standards Working Group (DIS) has invited the satellite communications (SATCOM) community to collaborate on the development of an open interoperability standard for the SATCOM industry.

The needs for an open standard include demand for higher throughput and the availability of more satellite bandwidth; the need to deploy and manage networks on a much larger scale; more flexible utilization of bandwidth and the use of higher-order modulations to improve bandwidth efficiency. The traditional analog L-Band modem to RF interface is currently impeding these goals.

Digitizing the interface between modem and RF components using the new open standard, the industry will be able to leverage the latest virtualization, cloud computing and network function virtualization technologies as well as greatly improve the performance and scale of satellite hub, gateway and modem equipment.

The Digital Interface Standards Working Group will oversee the creation of the new standard. Current DIS participants include Communications & Power Industries (CPI), DataPath, Datum Systems, Gilat Satellite Networks, SES, ST Engineering iDirect and Wavestream.

In an open letter to the SATCOM industry, DIS has detailed the work that has already been completed towards an open standard and opens up participation to the wider SATCOM industry. The open letter may be viewed here.