HX MeshGW

High-performance mesh traffic concentrator

The Hughes HX MeshGW is a powerful, low-cost solution for concentrating high volumes of mesh traffic at a regional site, acting as a subsystem to a central HX Gateway. It augments the HX System capabilities for configuring simultaneous mesh, star, and multi-star broadband satellite IP networks for cost-effective delivery of high-quality voice, data, and video services. Ideal for telephony applications as well as private subnetworks, the HX MeshGW provides hub-like interconnection to terrestrial infrastructure and supports single-hop routing into multiple termination points.

The HX MeshGW is scalable and able to dynamically support a large number of simultaneous mesh connections. Its many features include defining a single IP address to access the entire Gateway by identifying a “master” terminal and intelligently distributing traffic load across multiple HX260 routers. This design avoids the complexity and overhead of inverse multiplexing solutions and enables the HX260 routers to dynamically route traffic to various other gateways into the Internet or PSTN. In the case of telephony, this feature enables least-cost routing where the VoIP session is routed into the PSTN terrestrial fabric at the point closest to the destination. With various configurations to support small private data networks, the HX MeshGW is available in a fully redundant configuration for the highest performance and availability.

Target Markets

• Star within a star network (private subnetworks)
• GSM backhaul, SCPC/MCPC replacement links
• VoIP services

HX System with Mesh Feature

Efficiency and flexibility in utilizing satellite bandwidth are at the core of the HX System mesh design. Each TDMA link, whether in star or mesh mode, can be configured to provide a QoS tailored for the requirements of each link. This includes such capabilities as defining a minimum CIR (Committed Information Rate) and maximum rate, thereby allowing service providers to tailor services to specific customer requirements. In addition, the HX System bandwidth allocation scheme uses an Aloha channel for initial traffic requests (and only those), which means that remotes are able to release all TDMA channel assignments when they are idle. This frees up unused bandwidth and allows operators to make more efficient use of space segment resources.

Features

HX MeshGW

• Single IP Address
  • HX260 (mesh) routers access the HX MeshGW using a single IP address
• Single radio used for all HX MeshGW routers
• Redundant (optional nonredundant) configuration
• Pre-wired rack including power, LAN, and IF distribution
• External facing router functionality including:
  • Static and dynamic addressing
  • DHCP server or relay
  • DNS caching
  • RIPV1, RIPV2, BGP routing support
  • NAT/PAT
  • VRRP
  • VLAN tagging
  • Firewall support through integrated access control lists
• Software and configuration updates via download from the central HX Gateway
• Configuration, status monitoring, and commissioning via the central HX Gateway
• Embedded Web interface for local status and troubleshooting
• Remote terminal management via the Hughes Unified Element Manager and SNMP agent

HX System with Mesh Feature

• Quality of Service features include:
  • On-demand constant bit rate (CBR) services
  • Adaptive CBR with Min CIR (committed information rate) with max rate
  • Backlog-based dynamic stream with weighted fair queuing
  • Class-based weighted prioritization
  • Multicast data delivery
• Bandwidth allocation
  • Supports both preassigned (static) traffic assignment and dynamic traffic assignment
  • Idle remotes can be configured to release all network resources
• Supports unicast and multicast IP traffic