"VLAN Tagging" feature offers secure virtual private networks to many customers with automatic authorization

Reliability, portability, broadband data speeds, and a high level of customer care are all communication requirements of the oil and gas drilling business. With facilities and operations dispersed around the world in some of the most extreme and isolated areas, the energy industry faces challenges in keeping its remote sites connected with its headquarters and regional offices. In such environments, communications not only play a critical role in enhancing the efficiency of operations, but also serve as the only lifeline to civilization.

CapRock Communications, a provider of satellite communications including data, voice and video for harsh and remote locations, designed its IPxpress� networking architecture to meet the specific needs of customers with mobile operations in remote areas. IPxpress leverages IP routing and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technologies, enabling personnel to move from one site to another with their IP addresses, and even VoIP telephone numbers, �following� them to the new locations. This eliminates the hassle of reconfiguring network parameters such as IP addresses and results in easy plug and play operations.

To make this service viable, CapRock needed a method to offer high-speed services to many customers from a single VSAT hub. With its high-speed return channel, scalability, and advanced VLAN tagging feature, LinkStar� broadband VSATs have become a standard design for CapRock.

Energy exploration, production and service companies are finding that the business gets more difficult every year. The easy-to-reach wells are going fast, so locations are getting more and more remote. Only a few specialists in the world are capable of interpreting the sophisticated data that tell companies exactly where and how deep to drill. Getting these experts to travel to more and more remote - and dangerous - locations is not practical.

Geological scans produce very large data files, so connecting by many wireless alternatives would waste too much time. Early communication options were as low tech as recording data onto diskettes and shipping them to data centers. The longer it takes for decisions to be made in the field, the longer expensive assets such as drilling rigs sit idle and unproductive. Better ways to keep the experts at home and bring the data to them were clearly needed. Now satellite connects exploration locations in North America, South America and Africa with the state-of-the-art Real Time Centers at the corporate offices and other regional decision centers around the world. There, experts can interpret incoming data and direct drillers in virtual real time to the locations that will bring the biggest yields.

Originally deployed with the ViaSat StarWire DAMA IP VSAT system, CapRock has since moved to the more advanced LinkStar networking system. ViaSat has adapted the same easy installation and commissioning features to the LinkStar system � non-satellite technicians can move the terminals into place and be up and running in 20 to 30 minutes at any location. Several other advantages also make the case for the move to LinkStar VSATs.

First, the LinkStar network can grow to service far larger networks. The ultimate capacity of a single LinkStar hub can grow to 10,000 remote terminals.

Second, LinkStar is one of the few star architecture VSAT systems that can send data from remote sites back to the hub at very high rates, with a maximum of more than 3 Mbps. CapRock customers have a choice of 144 kbps, 256 kbps, 384 kbps, or 512 kbps, The high-speed return channel is very important in these networks where most data flows from remote sites to the hub, reversing the typical hub-spoke traffic pattern.

Finally, a key LinkStar differentiator is its VLAN Tagging feature. LinkStar modems include the latest advances in Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology to provide secure segregation and correct routing of customer data traffic within the CapRock network. VLAN Tagging enables a service provider to provide many different customers with their own virtual private networks (VPNs) from a single hub installation. These �multi-tenant� VPNs are completely secure from other shared-hub customers and automatically authorize users as they log in and request access to network resources. Each customer can receive its own custom level of privacy and service, opening up a world of options for CapRock.

�The VLAN tagging feature in LinkStar really positions us to meet our customers� needs for privacy, security, and quality of service as they push into more remote locations around the world,� said Errol Olivier, president and COO of CapRock.

About CapRock (www.caprock.com)
Celebrating 25 years in business, CapRock Communications is a premier global satellite communications provider for the off-shore energy, maritime, construction and mining industries, as well as for disaster relief and government applications. The Company uses the latest field-proven satellite technologies to deliver highly reliable managed communication services for broadband networking, real-time video and digital telephony to the world's harshest and most remote locations. CapRock delivers on its promise to be the market's reliability leader by leveraging "best of breed" partnerships, technical expertise and a robust self-owned and operated global infrastructure that includes four international teleports and ten regional operation centers across the U.S., Central and South America, Europe, West Africa and Asia Pacific.

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