Podcast: SES CTO on software-defined satellites

Satellite operator SES has a busy year-end planned with the scheduled launch of two medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites in mid-December.

The company's CTO, Ruy Pinto, met up with Light Reading on site at Boeing Satellite in El Segundo, California, earlier this month with an update on the scheduled launch. Pinto explains how SES' O3b mPower MEO satellites differ both in size and software-defined capabilities from traditional MEO satellites.

On the topic of software-defined satellites, Pinto provides an example of how the new mPower satellites will use the adaptive resource controller (ARC) orchestrator to adjust the connectivity provided to cruise ship customers.

"So the adaptive resource controller control plane, it will dynamically – every minute almost – allocate capacity, power and bandwidth to that ship as needed."

Pinto also discusses how SES partners with terrestrial service providers such as Orange and Verizon, and why SES works with cloud partners Microsoft and Amazon as part of its multi-cloud strategy.

This podcast was originally published on Connecting Africa's sister site Light Reading.

You can download a lightly edited transcript of the podcast here.

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