Few days ago, Cisco announced the results of the latest Internet Routing in Space (IRIS) testing, marking the first-ever software upgrade of an Internet Protocol (IP) router aboard a commercial satellite while in orbit. In addition, Cisco completed the industry’s first Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call made without the use of any terrestrial infrastructure to route the call. Cisco’s IRIS technology will let you make a VoIP call over the satellite  – and here’s the kicker – without using any terrestrial infrastructure to route the call. That’s a radical departure from current communications satellite technology, which relies on ground-based [...]

Cisco Systems wants to put a router on every communications satellite. The networking giant has already sent the first one into space. The company announced that the router has successfully completed initial in-orbit tests, after being launched Nov. 23 aboard the Intelsat 14 communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit, 22,300 miles above the Earth. The move is one small step in a bold, new Cisco initiative dubbed Internet Routing in Space (IRIS), which company executives say extends the same Internet protocol-based (IP) technology used to build the World Wide Web into the heavens. The long-term goal, they say, is to route [...]