What are NTNs? #
We call all systems that are not on land “Non-Terrestrial”. The term NTN, refers to communication networks that utilize NT devices. These kind of networks are essential to provide connectivity in regions where building ground devices are not feasible.
Why use NTNs? #
Let’s imagine that you are at home, doomscrolling. Probably there is a base station near your home that your phone connects. Then, you get hungry and want to eat outside. You get in car and start driving. While driving your friend calls and you both chat while you are driving to your favourite restaurant. Probably you won’t notice any change about the call quality while your are driving. In the mean time your phone will automatically change base stations while you are driving to provide you the best connection quality.
This is not going to happen all time when you drive from one place to another. If there are not any base stations near you at any moment, then probably you will see a no signal notification in your phone. For you to be able to communicate with your friend all around the globe without connection loss, we should build a lot (and I mean a lot) of ground stations. But if we were to use NTNs then there would be no need of building these stations. Also building these stations are not always an option (e.g. in the middle of oceon, in rural areas, at an emergency).
Current Situation and Future of NTNs #
Okey now we know that building stations everywhere around the globe is not the only solution for our problem. We can utilize NTN systems to achieve our goal of providing connectivity everywhere. But what is the current process of utilizing NTN systems and what is the general vision, let’s talk about that. 5G (Release 17+) utilizes NTN systems as a supportive feature for the existing network systems. Also NTN systems can be directly used (without NT systems) for providing connectivity (e.g. Starlink).
6G is the successor of the current 5G technology. NTNs are a fundamental part of the 6G standard. So, it is planned to be a standard part of the wireless telecommunication.
This is the first post of my blog. I hope you enjoyed.
