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Other Services
BT has a range of other smaller fixed and mobile, deployable, and transportable earth stations within the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America providing a whole range of individual services as required. Most of these are remotely operated and controlled from one of BT's fixed main sites, the others are operated and maintained on BT's behalf by local third party quality suppliers. There are currently 26 fixed satellite accesses from Europe, and North America.
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Satellite Services on Intelsat There are typically two methods of obtaining satellite resource on the Intelsat system, similar arrangements exist on other commercial satellite communications systems. The two methods are the leased-based system and carrier based system There are two forms of leased service Non Pre-emptible Transponder Lease Pre-emptible Transponder Lease Usage of Leased Capacity Meets the specification of the transmission plan Meets specifications in Intelsat document IESS 410 Is approved by Intelsat
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Channel/Carrier
Services
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| Performance
BT's architecture uses tried and tested technology throughout it's Satellite Earth Stations, from the remote site to either earth stations or Very Small Aperture Terminal's (VSAT's) and then into BT's backhaul networks.
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Satellite Planning
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If the solution to the customers requests involves a satellite element then the customer facing division would approach the Satellite and Network Planning unit who would consider the customers requirement and select an appropriate satellite consortia to meet these requirements, subjects considered would include: Is the solution best met as a carrier based service or a leased service Coverage Availability Cost Capabilities of the customer's infrastructure e.g. what is the maximum size dish that can be installed, what is the horizon profile from this location, what power capabilities are present? Performing link budget analysis to obtain an optimum solution considering Earth Station capabilities at each end of the link and satellite resource cost (Typically the larger the satellite dish the less the cost of the satellite resource and the less cost of the solution). Negotiate with the satellite consortia to determine if the required bandwidth was available on the chosen satellite. Once this process is complete both parties to the link (this could be the same company or two different ones) submit an order to the selected consortia for the appropriate resource (bandwidth, EIRP, availability, duration). The consortia then issues line up details to the two parties (frequency, EIRPs modulation schemes). A line up test is then performed (this is typically called an SSOG after the Intelsat Satellite System Operation Guide which details line up procedures). The system enters service.
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Service Design and Equipment Provision Earth Station Projects Team This expertise has placed BT at the forefront of satellite technology for more than thirty-five years and has been the subject of continuous investment and planned upgrades in order to keep pace with the demands of this rapidly developing marketplace. The team has designed and built various facilities with its own technical resource and now owns operates and maintains thousands of antennas worldwide, ranging from 32 metres down to 1.2 metre units. The types of services that have been implemented are; As part of implementing services and project the team regularly is involved in any number of the below activities and has considerable experience in all of them - System & Network design IP based network provision and integration Managed Networks, including TDMA and VSAT System & Network Control & Monitoring Equipment Procurement Supplier & contractor management Site surveys Work for Government and Military Customers Supporting clients at customer meetings Managed installation & commissioning issues Managed shipping & customs matters Civil Engineering Finance Management Power systems design & provision Site safety Terrestrial circuit provision Evaluated and developed new technologies Technical Design Authority for managed networks Working with customers to overcome equipment & interface problems Madley - Two 8M and one 9M antenna; Goonhilly - Two 13M antenna; Netley, New Zealand - One 13M antenna; Martlesham - One 15M antenna and One 11M antenna; France - An 18 antenna network. Turkey - One 6.3M antenna and One 3.8M Antenna Washington - One 6.3M antenna and One 4.8M Antenna Equipment Procurement Performance
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| Operations
and Maintenance at BT's Main Earth Stations
The operation of the main Earth Stations are manned 24hrs 365 days of the year by highly skilled Satellite Communication engineers (the Ops team), all with years of experience working within the Satellite Communications business. The Operational rota provides Engineers on duty they all have an element of multiskilling to back each other should the need arise. Within normal hours these officers are supported by a 'pool man' who covers any gaps on the rota due to sickness or annual leave, and therefore ensures a full compliment on rota at all times, and also a support man who can assist at busy times The team looks after the 1st line maintenance aspects of the Earth Station by dealing with customer and administration requests, plus any equipment alarms that occur. All equipment has auto redundancy which, should it fail, will change over to a good path. The 1st line maintenance engineer will change the unit for maintenance spare and change back the circuit to provide once again full redundancy. The faulty equipment will then be logged on the fault database for repair by the maintenance team. The technicians have knowledge and expertise in the Radio elements of the site including High Power Amplifiers, Antenna steering and Remote Control and Monitoring systems. Additionally 'expert' day technicians are also on call out giving 24-hour specialist support. Training Performance The Earth Station has maintenance teams to support the operations team throughout the day. There are teams engineers whose resources are flexibly used for repair, RC&M builds and support to Direct Labour (DL) installation functions on satellite equipment. Most of the engineers have in excess of ten years experience of satellite communications. BT work to an internal standard called ISIS ADM/NNS/V035, Earth Station Fault Repair. Maintenance information comes from the Virtual Earth Station Operations System (VESOPS) an electronic faulting/tracking system. The process is as follows: When a fault occurs then, generally, the redundancy
system associated with the faulty equipment (modem, converter HPA) will
have automatically switched in a spare unit to restore the traffic path.
The faulty unit will then be replaced with maintenance spare and the
unit taken to the faulty equipment trolley. The Ops or maintenance staff
on VESOPS will log the fault. A Senior Engineer in the maintenance team
checks VESOPS each morning. The Senior Engineer will then issue the
job to one of the maintenance team to deal with who then enters relevant
information (including time spent on repair etc.) as the unit is worked
on until it is cleared. Repair work is normally performed in the electronic
repair centre (ERC). There are also Maintenance teams specialising in Power (High Voltage {HV} and Low Voltage {LV}), Antenna Riggers, and Structures (drive motors, gearboxes, etc). These teams are currently supporting implementation projects and ongoing maintenance across Europe. Repair facilitiesFaults are repaired to component level (dependent on manufacture releasing circuit diagrams). The Electronic Repair Centre (ERC) is a purpose built repair area with full ESP (Electrostatic Protection), soldering fume extraction, individual work areas, natural day light and is air conditioned. The ERC has facilities for conventional soldering/repairs, SMD (Smart surface mount soldering station)., test rigs with noise and interference testers for I.F. (or SHF via translators) loop testing on digital modems (mainly IDR ) including data transmission analysers (Fireberd, Marconi, Anristui testers available), Hewlett Packard Phase Noise measurement test rig , Hewlett Packard and Tektronic high spec analysers, Scaler analysers, high spec Oscilloscopes, frequency counters etc... Many of the engineers have ART C1 certificates. Some examples of recent repairs: Marconi P3801 and 3802 QPSK IDR modems, Miteq up and downconverters, insertion loss and frequency response on flexible waveguides.
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| Technical
Design and Development Technical Design We have a team of 'experts' who are capable of dealing with all aspects of satellite design and testing anywhere in the world. Bid and Implementation We have the resources to provide bespoke and standard priced quotes depending on your requirement for all types of satellite services. |
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Equipment Alarm philosophy
Hard Wired Groups of EOS alarms are then collected together to form an Area alarm. This could represent all equipment in a building (for example an aerial building or a group of equipment types e.g. modems). The area alarms are portrayed on a "Bingo board " in the main operational control areas. RC&MEach item of equipment is monitored by a remote, control, and monitoring (RC&M) system. Any alarm on the equipment is flagged on the RC&M screen normally in red. RedundancyAll satellite communications equipment is configured in auto redundant configurations. Two methods of redundancy switching are employed, Chain and Equipment. In Chain redundant systems two parallel chains of GCE exist (Modem, Converters, High Power Amplifiers {HPA's}) one on line, and one off line. In the event of a failure of any unit in the online chain the whole chain is switched out and replaced by the offline chain. In Equipment redundant configurations each item of equipment in the GCE chain is a member of its own redundant system. Modems and Converters are normally in 1:8 configurations, Low Noise Amplifiers (LNA's) 1:1/2.
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| Power
The power supplies at the Earth Stations come from the local electricity supplier. This is distributed at 11kv around the sites. Additionally BT has its own generators that supply autonomous HV rings. Each operational building is supplied with power from one of these HV rings and has its own HV substation where HV is switched and transformed down to LV for distribution within that building. In the event of an emergency the HV ring systems can be linked to become one system through strategically placed "link" cables If the local suppliers predict, or are experiencing problems then they either request or advise the operational staff to transfer power supplies onto standby generator sets. This advice also extends to possible loss of power or short interruptions due to climatic conditions (thunder storms, high winds and heavy snow). Power Maintenance UPS The system consists of the following components: Madley has the biggest and most complicated HV ring system anywhere within BT. There are over 2.5 miles of buried armoured HV cable along with over 5 miles of protection and alarm LV cables and over 6 miles of copper earth tape. There are 12 HV substations on site with a total of 100 HV Oil Circuit Breakers, Gas Circuit Breakers and Oil Fuse Switches. Of these, 23 Breakers are of the automatic open and re-close type controlled by their respective Generator Systems. Madley has 33 HV to LV Transformers and 4 LV to HV Transformers. In the event of a disaster both HV ring systems can be linked to become one system through two strategically placed "link" cables. Also if an engine house were to fail (fire, bomb disaster etc) and provided that all engine sets are available in the un-effected engine house then power could be restored to the system. Similar arrangements exist at all BT's main Earth Stations.
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| Disaster
Recovery Regular practice (once per year) of the disaster recovery plan, e.g. a plane lands on a main Earth Station what would we do? We have a Building incident controller on each shift plus management, and all Managers have an additional role under the Forward Control Point (FCP). We have the FCP as a headquarters with phones lines and faxes and can call upon the mobile disaster incident room and indeed portable generation plant.
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| Service
and Reporting BT Satellite Services provides excellent customer service. Through its dedicated Customer Service Centre BT Satellite Services will provide a single point of contact for Service Assurance (Faults and repair), and Service Delivery (Provision). Service reports are key management tools for customers that provide information across a range of services with a consistent format, delivery mechanism and detailed content. BT Satellite Services offer standard and custom Performance Reports. The standard report shows service availability, individual downtime for faults and the root cause and is included as part of the service provision. Custom reports are customer specific and available at an additional charge. On rare occasions, a customer may request a specific performance report to be provided, which Concert is able to do for an additional charge. Reports are currently delivered by e-mail or, if requested, as a hard copy sent by post. Service management of BT's services meets minimum
standards is each of the four main areas - Customer Management, Order
Management and Implementation, Fault Management and Customer Network
Monitoring and Modification
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| Organisation
BT will provide a service using it's existing organisation and people. The teams providing these services are:- Network Transport (part of BT Wholesale), who provide all Satellite and Subsea Cable operations, including Ground Operator Management. This organisation includes Technical Design and Development experts who work in conjunction with BT Global and Adastral Park to provide specialised design, testing and development for new systems. BT Global who provide Project Management and Technical Design for new services and churn. The teams providing these services are the same organisations and individuals who have provided these services over many years and have a proven track record in meeting such requirements.
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| Performance
Targets This section describes the performance targets for the Customers Services. The performance targets or Quality of Service (QoS) encompasses -
The performance targets are a competitive differentiator and the Customer can use this information as a proactive reporting tool for determining performance results. Performance target measurement will also be used as a performance report for the purpose of continuous quality improvement. The purpose of the program is to -
Target Levels Service Level Guarantees are network and service performance levels (values) that are incorporated into contracts, and are contractual obligations to meet customer specific performance criteria. Service AvailabilityBT Satellite Services views service availability as an extremely important performance measurement, and one that Customers particularly value. The ability to deliver the highest service level on a global basis will be a significant competitive differentiator. This measurement is defined in terms of what is most important to multinational customers. Performance targets for availability are targeted as follows: Standard 99.8% in any calendar month Downtimes caused by the following are excluded:
The BT Satellite Services CSC will answer 90% of calls within 15 seconds. Fault severity definitions:
Scheduled Maintenance The total time for scheduled maintenance will not exceed nine (9) hours per quarter. Customer will be notified by e-mail seven (7) days in advance if any scheduled maintenance is expected to cause Service downtime.
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| Abbreviations
BT British Telecommunications Plc CSC Customer Service Centre EIRP Effective Isotropic Radiated Power EMC Electromagnetic Compatibility ERC Electronic Repair Centre FEC Forward error correction GHY Goonhilly Earth Station IDR Intermediate Data Rate IP Internet Protocol ISDN Integrated systems Digital Network LES Land Earth Station
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LTP London Teleport MDY Madley Earth Station MTP Martlesham Teleport NBC Nuclear, Biological, Chemical OCA Operations Control Area O&M Operations and Maintenance OR Ocean Region QPSK Quadrature Phase Shift Keying RF Radio Frequency UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply VESOPS Virtual Earth Station Operations System |
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