PISCATAWAY, N.J., Oct. 17, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability Consortium announced today the addition of new member organizations in the EMEA region to its growing family of organizations dedicated to the digital transformation of satellite services. Companies recently joining DIFI include:
NATO Communications and Information Agency is a technology and cyber expert group, with 3,000-strong team located in 29 sites, delivering capabilities critical to fulfilling NATO’s core mission of consultation, collective defense and crisis management.
Arabsat, the Arab Satellite Communications Organization, headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, delivers satcom services to the Arab States from eight satellites.
Groundspace provides software-based orchestration, logging and operational planning for the ground segment of space operations from Montpellier, France.
RF-Design supplies switch matrix systems, RF-over-fiber solutions, line amplifiers, RF monitoring systems and custom solutions from its headquarters in Lorch, Germany.
Teledyne Paradise Datacom, based in Witham, UK, supplies satellite modems, solid state power amplifiers, low noise amplifiers, block up converters and associated subsystems.
With the gain of these members, the DIFI membership now includes over 60 companies and agencies including the US Navy, US Army C5ISR Center, Amazon Web Services, US Space Force, Microsoft, Airbus Defense and Space, SES Engineering, Hughes Network Systems, Inmarsat, Defense Information Systems Agency, HawkEye 360, Kymeta, Kratos Defense & Space, Cobham and Comtech.
“The digital transformation of the satellite industry is being driven – not by vendors – but by their customers,” said DIFI Board Chairman Stuart Daughtridge. “That’s reflected in the sector and geographic diversity of DIFI’s membership. Our goal is simple: to create an open and transparent standard, developed by users, operators and vendors working together, that enables true interoperability among all vendors’ communications technology. It will reduce the total cost of ownership and boost network and terminal agility, performance and resilience. It will also open the door to new markets, greater integration with terrestrial services and a truly software-defined future for the industry.”
About DIFI
The mission of the Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability (DIFI) Consortium is to enable the digital transformation of space, satellite, and related industries by providing a simple, open, interoperable Digital IF/RF standard that replaces the natural interoperability of analog IF signals and helps prevent vendor lock-in. Today, ground segment relies on coaxial cable to transport RF at intermediate frequencies, such as L-Band, between antennas and modems and through multiple analog devices. Analog IF systems, with their inflexible chain of hardware, are difficult to scale and complex to operate. They are struggling to handle today’s capacity demands and cannot scale up to meet the needs of tomorrow.
The industry needs an open and transparent standard, developed and adopted not by vendors alone but by users, operators and vendors working together. A standard that meets the broadest range of needs without becoming too complex and costly to implement. A standard that reduces the total cost of ownership and boosts network and terminal agility, performance and resilience, enabling ground segment to seamlessly adapt to rapidly changing space-layer payloads, orbits and constellations.
Contact:
Joni Sterlacci
Sr. Program Manager
j.sterlacci@ieee.org
