Inmarsat Pushes Ahead With Satellite Broadband Plans

Andrew Donoghue,

Providing broadband via satellite is becoming an increasingly viable way to provide access to remote areas

Mobile satellite company Inmarsat has announced more details of a plan to expand its mobile broadband network delivered by satellite.

In a statement this week, the company said it had agreed to purchase three 702HP Ka-band satellites from Boeing. The new satellites will be used to create the Inmarsat-5 constellation of satellites, which the company says will provide a worldwide high-speed mobile broadband service called Global Xpress.

iPad-Sized Antenna

The new service is expected to be up and running by 2014 and will provide mobile speeds of up to 50MB/s to customer terminal from 20 to 60cm in size. The company said it is targeting markets such as Maritime, Energy and Government with the service.

“With the Global Xpress network, we will be the first operator to offer global mobile broadband coverage, offering unparalleled speeds and bandwidth to customers in remote locations around the world,” said Andrew Sukawaty, chairman and CEO of Inmarsat. “Picture 50Mbps services to a ship or aircraft and 10Mbps to an antenna the size of an iPad (20cm).”

Other providers are also hoping to capitalise on the versatility of broadband delivered by satellite. Satellite specialist Eutelsat is planning to deploy the KA-SAT satellite network in November, which it claims will be capable of a maximum of 40Mbps downstream and 20Mbps up.

Remote Areas

Across Europe, roughly 10 percent of Internet subscribers can either not gain access to a DSL service at all, or are only able to achieve speeds of 1Mbps.

Inmarsat was awarded the prestigious MacRobert Award in June by the Royal Academy of Engineering for its Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) service. In a statement, the Royal Academy made special reference to the role the technology played in helping to provide connectivity for aid agencies and victims of the earthquake in Haiti in January. For example, on the 20 January, a few days after the Haiti earthquake struck, 137 BGAN terminals were sending and receiving data while also supporting 35 telephone conversations.

Earlier this year, surrey-based satellite manufacturer SSTL was granted one of the initial contracts to build the long-awaited European Galileo satellite network – a rival to the US GPS service.