News Excerpt:
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs plans to collaborate with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to deploy V-SAT stations on a pilot basis for around 80 tribal villages to bring Internet services.
More about the news:
- A gap analysis conducted by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs identified approximately 18,000 tribal majority villages with challenging accessibility due to remote locations and terrain.
- Inadequate mobile and internet connectivity hinders access to basic services in these areas.
- On a pilot basis, V-SAT stations will be installed in around 80 tribal villages in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Maharashtra.
- These are some of the geographically remote villages in the region and have difficult terrain.
- ISRO's satellite-based (V-SAT) solutions can significantly address these connectivity challenges. V-SAT stations can be static or mounted on vehicles.
- These stations will offer a Wi-Fi capacity of 100 Mbps, expandable to another 100 Mbps with boosters, enhancing connectivity and access to essential services for tribal communities.
VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal)
- A Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) is a small-sized earth station used in the transmission/reception of data, voice, and video signals over a satellite communication network
- A VSAT consists of two parts: a transceiver placed outdoors in direct line of sight to the satellite, and a device that is placed indoors to interface the transceiver with the end user’s communications device, such as a PC.
- The term ‘Very Small’ in VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal ) refers to the very small antenna size.
- VSAT is of importance, especially in remote areas such as the hilly mountain regions, where Internet connectivity cannot be directly provided.
