Earn more, learn more, and realise your potential Mobile Technology email newsletter Get ZDNet's mobile news and reviews. The amount of corporate traffic sent over satellite links is increasing, but delays and packet loss can cause problems. Birgitta Ronn reports on the new protocols that are tackling these difficulties W hether knowingly or not, in recent years IT users have found themselves sending traffic across satellite links.
Satellite communications remain a good way to set up large, low-cost data pipes.
Although there is increasing competition from the large fibre networks, which carry more and more traffic due to wave division multiplexing, satellites can offer wide coverage for high-bandwidth services. The rush to IP stemmed partly from a desire for efficiency and lower equipment costs, with smaller receiver terminals looking like Ethernet hubs or routers, and being easier to support. Obstacles to reliable, efficient data transfer across satellite links remain, however. SCPS-FP is optimised for the uploading of commands and software and the downloading of telemetry data. SCPS-FP is able to retrieve and update complete files or parts of those files to cope with the inevitable link outages and transfer failures.