Livewire Digital is pleased to announce the completion of its €900k Smart Networking Phase 3 project for the European Space Agency and delivery of its RazorLink cross platform software that provides seamless communications across cellular, terrestrial and satellite networks to deliver aggregated bandwidth, acceleration and resilience without the need to change existing applications or workflows. Offering a seamless, carrier agnostic transition between terrestrial and satellite, RazorLink Smart Networking successfully meets one of the headline objectives of 5G. A video summary of the technology can be found at https://youtu.be/nGdWNhMwM7g.
The support from the European Space Agency Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems’ (ESA ARTES) Competitiveness & Growth programme accelerated development of the advanced RazorLink Smart Networking protocols and realised a fully scalable Cloud offering for Hybrid Communications as a Service (HCaaS) that allows users to combine multiple Internet connections into a single, fast and fully optimised link. The HCaaS model is suitable for both public and private Cloud deployments and has a billing capability compatible with telecom operators’ infrastructure.
During the course of the project RazorLink Smart Networking was successfully deployed with a number of customers for technical and commercial evaluation. Possibly the most demanding of these was the 2017-2018 Volvo Ocean Race; during which the onboard communications were extended to three Inmarsat terminals, four 4G cellular modems and marina Wi-Fi. Communications with the Race Office were managed by RazorLink technology to combine available bandwidth, overcome the limitations of Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP) to accelerate data transfers, prioritise important traffic and to deliver low latency, resilient, live video feeds.
Francisco Javier de Pablos Martin, Ground Segment Engineer at ECSAT said, “Seamless interoperability between satellite and terrestrial networks is becoming increasingly important in a world where there is an expectation for ubiquitous connectivity."
Tristan Wood, Managing Director of Livewire Digital said: “The support from ESA has significantly accelerated development of the RazorLink Smart Networking technology and reduced the time to market. Livewire Digital is increasing the size of the development and marketing team and establishing business relationships with key customers.”
Further RazorLink R&D is taking place as part of the ESA “LightBar” project where Livewire Digital is working as part of a consortium being led by Satellite Applications Catapult. The project will realise a small form factor, modular, hybrid communications device for use on emergency vehicles.
Following on from the successful completion of the ESA contract, a commercial release of the RazorLink Smart Networking Hybrid Comms as a Service is planned to coincide with IBC 2019 (13th September, Amsterdam).
Livewire Digital welcomes discussions with technology providers with a requirement for resilient communications to enhance their customer offering.