As part of a new mobile communication network covering North and South America, Comsat Labs was funded by Boeing to develop a ground-based beam forming (GBBF) system beginning in February, 2006. The GBBF system is a massive signal processor that is designed to coordinate and process up to 500 beams at once.

Optimized Frequency Sharing Between Satellite and Terrestrial Cellular
The GBBF system creates hundreds of small, flexible, adaptive “spot” beams on the earth that allow mobile handsets to communicate directly with the satellite with smaller antennas, higher speeds, and better performance than ever before.  While the beams are projected to the earth by the satellite, the ground system performs the beam-shaping signal processing.

GBBF technology brings three major benefits to satellite systems:

• Faster and lower cost satellite deployment because the processing is on the ground, rather than part of the satellite bus
• Ability to coordinate frequency use and remove interference for mass numbers of subscribers
• Refocusing of satellite capacity to the areas of greatest need.

Getting Satellite Capacity to Where the Action Is
Another possible application is for military communications. Affordable and fast re-direction of beams could provide service to new locations as troops move.  And, if hackers jam or otherwise interrupt satellite service, satellite operators can null out the beam under attack, while services continue for other areas through other spot beams.

  UPDATE - September 6, 2011

Boeing has awarded contracts valued at approximately $40 million to develop a GBBF system for the Mexican Satellite System (MEXSAT). The beam forming system is designed to operate with the Boeing L-band geomobile satellite system being provided for Secretaria de Communicaciones y Transportes (SCT) of Mexico. ViaSat is under contract to supply Boeing with GBBF processors, the control and management system, and the uplink beacon stations to be deployed in two ground stations in Mexico City and Hermosillo, Mexico.