What is Corporate WAN Backup via satellite and who typically uses it?

It is a secondary wide-area network path that activates automatically when a company's primary terrestrial connection (fibre, MPLS, cellular) fails. Enterprises with distributed offices, retail chains, logistics operators, banks, and energy firms use it to maintain operations, protect revenue, and meet regulatory uptime obligations during outages.

Why should a government operate this capability rather than simply buying Starlink or Inmarsat commercially?

Foreign-operated constellations can be throttled, repriced, or denied at the discretion of their home-country government — events documented during geopolitical disputes. A sovereign constellation keeps the routing, encryption keys, and spectrum allocation under national control. The OECD estimates enterprises lose $300,000 per hour of downtime; a government that can guarantee WAN continuity for its national enterprises has a direct GDP-protection lever.

What orbit and satellite class makes sense for a WAN backup constellation?

LEO at 500–600 km altitude is the standard choice: latency drops to 20–40 ms (compared with 600+ ms on GEO), and constellation phasing ensures any ground terminal sees a satellite within 60–90 seconds. Microsatellites of 50–150 kg carrying Ka-band payloads offer the best balance of launch cost, capacity per satellite, and replacement cadence.

How does failover actually work in practice?

SD-WAN software on the customer premises equipment continuously monitors primary-link health metrics (latency, packet loss, jitter). When thresholds are breached, traffic is rerouted automatically through the satellite terminal — typically in under 60 seconds with modern equipment. The satellite link appears as just another underlay to the SD-WAN, so applications see no topology change.

How much bandwidth can a satellite WAN backup realistically deliver?

Current LEO services such as Starlink Business advertise peak download speeds of 220 Mbps per terminal, though shared-beam architectures mean real-world sustained throughput is lower — typically 50–100 Mbps in enterprise deployments. For backup purposes (email, VPN, VoIP, critical ERP transactions) this is more than sufficient; video-heavy workloads may need traffic prioritisation.

What cybersecurity risks are specific to satellite WAN links?

Satellite signals are broadcast and therefore theoretically interceptable, so payload encryption (IPsec or TLS 1.3 minimum) is non-negotiable. Ground segment infrastructure — teleports, Network Operations Centres — are high-value targets; NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 provides the baseline control set. Nations operating a sovereign constellation must also secure the command-and-control uplink against spoofing or jamming.

What does building a sovereign WAN backup constellation cost versus buying service?

A 20-satellite microsatellite constellation with national Ka-band coverage costs roughly $150–300M to design, build, and launch, with $20–40M per year in operations. Buying equivalent capacity from commercial providers at scale costs $30–80M per year without capital ownership, without control, and without the dual-use intelligence and resilience benefits a sovereign asset provides.

Are there international regulations governing satellite-based enterprise WAN services?

Yes. The ITU Radio Regulations govern spectrum use and interference protection (relevant filings under Article 9 and Appendix 4). ETSI EN 302 307-2 covers DVB-S2X framing widely used in VSAT uplinks. Nationally, operators must comply with each country's telecommunications licensing regime, which varies significantly across jurisdictions.

1.6.1Live

Corporate WAN Backup

IT workers at monitors in a corporate network operations center — A network engineer connects cables in a data center where satellite WAN backup ensures uninterrupted enterprise connectivity worldwide.

Satellite WAN Backup Keeps Enterprises Always Connected

1
Satellite Constellation
GEO or LEO relay redundant WAN traffic
2
Ground Station
teleport receives and forwards enterprise data
3
Failover Routing
router detects outage, switches to satellite link
4
Corporate Site
offices maintain VPN, VoIP, and cloud access

When terrestrial links fail, satellite automatically takes over WAN traffic, ensuring continuous enterprise connectivity across all sites.

Page in the build queue

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Maturity reading: Operational systems exist with paying customers. Phase 1 built §4.1 (Maritime Intelligence) end-to-end as the depth-and-format reference. Section 4 is the next section to graduate from scaffold to full content; the rest follow on the roadmap.

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