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With over 3.3 billion people or half the world’s population using cellular phones of all technologies as of the end of 2007, it’s interesting to know that cellular services altogether cover only 15% of the earth’s surface, up from 10% five years ago, with coverage is not expected to exceed 20% in the next 10 years.
At the same time, subscribers and national communications regulators demand fixed line and wireless operators to expand more coverage quickly, while operators worry about complying without busting the bank.
Quite often, coverage and speed are never enough, however much they try, while the more vocal users and information and communications technology (ICT) media pounces on them for falling short.
However, seemingly overlooked by most ICT media amidst all this fog is a rather old, tried and tested medium – namely communication satellites -- which has provided immediate regional or global coverage for military and civilian communication services for decades.
Today, a satellite telephone call between any two points on the planet typically costs around US 40 cents (RM1.32) per minute, which isn’t exactly cheap but is definitely cheaper than making international calls while roaming on terrestrial cellular networks in certain countries at least.
Satellite data typically costs US$5 per MB, which is considerably cheaper than the US$15 per MB cellular roaming data charges.
The world’s first civilian communication satellite was Telstar owned by AT&T. Launched in 1962, it relayed television signals between ground stations equipped with huge dish antennas.
Since then, Inmarsat satellites are currently relied on by the world’s shipping, oil exploration, defence and aviation industries to service their communications needs and it’s also the communications channel of choice for the media when reporting from the world’s danger zones and for NGOs, government agencies and the United Nations when coordinating rescue efforts.
Founded in 1979, originally as an inter governmental organisation at the behest of the International Maritime Organisation, a United Nations body, the International Maritime Satellite Organisation (Inmarsat) now is an international telecommunications company listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: ISAT).
It initially provide voice, telex, medium-speed fax and data services and optionally “high-speed” data services at 56Kbps and 64Kbps to thousands of ships and boats of various types at sea via its Inmarsat-A satellites.
Inmarsat-E satellites carried a global maritime distress alerting service based on small Emergency Position Indicating Rescue Beacons (EPIRB) which automatically relayed distress messages to maritime Rescue Coordination Centres but this service was terminated in December, 2006 due to lack of interest from the maritime community.
However, satellite capacities have so far been limited, data rates have been slow and user terminals expensive but this changed with the introduction of newer and more powerful satellites, such as Inmarsat-4.
The trio complete
The third member of its Inmarsat-4 constellation was successfully carried aloft atop a Proton Breeze M rocket which lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11.43pm BST on 18th August (4.43am 19th August, Malaysian time).
Inmarsat-4 is a powerful, high capacity, geo-stationary satellite providing Internet Protocol (IP) based broadband communications. Prior to this launch, its two siblings - the first of which was launched in 2005 - together covered Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas – or about 85% of the earth’s land mass and about 98% of its population.
The third sibling will undergo a period of deployment and several weeks of comprehensive tests and manouvres before being positioned in geostationary orbit at 98º West, from where it will cover the Pacific Ocean region, including Alaska, New Zealand, eastern parts of Japan and Australia.
The trio will provide planet wide coverage, except for Earth’s extreme polar regions. The Inmarsat-4 system is expected to be operational until 2020.
Spot beams and frequency re-use
Inmarsat-4 is 60 times more powerful than its predecessor Inmarsat-3 - launched between 1996 and 1998 -- in terms of signal power, its capacity and 10s of thousands of users it supports on Earth’s surface.
Like Inmarsat-3, each Inmarsat-4 satellite’s signal coverage can be focused into spotbeams covering different parts of Earth’s surface, while concentrates its power and sensitivity for dense use and which also enables frequency re-use, thus increasing its capacity.
On the other hand each of the Inmarsat-2 satellites launched between 1990 and 1992 covered one-third of Earth’s surface with no frequency re-use and it was about 10 times less powerful than Inmarsat-3.
A key benefit of satellites such as the Inmarsat-4s are that they put more power and capability in space, which allows for simpler and cheaper terminals on Earth, while terminals used with Inmarsat-2 were large and had comparatively few users.
“The Inmarsat-4s (I-4) are the world’s most sophisticated commercial network for mobile voice and data services, and the successful launch of the third I-4 allows us to complete the global coverage for our broadband services. Once the third I-4 is operational, Inmarsat will have the only fully-funded next-generation network for mobile satellite services,” said Andrew Sukawaty, Inmarsat chief executive officer and chairman.
“Inmarsat-4 carries Internet Protocol packet-switched data at rates up to 512Kbps as well as GSM and carries a range of voice and data communications such as GSM, CDMA, 3G, 4G as well as traditional circuit-switched voice and ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network) communications over the space segment,” said Michael Butler, Inmarsat president and chief operating officer.
Inmarsat-4 operates in the L-Band – ie 1.5 to 1,6GHz, which enables very stable communications and is not affected by rain.
Butler was in Kuala Lumpur earlier for a regional partners conference of hardware manufacturers, service providers and distributors.
Land mobile
The first new service launched over Inmarsat-4 was the Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) land mobile service – the fastest growing in Inmarsat’s history and already has about 20,000 users in over 180 countries.
Its customers include media organisations, oil & gas, mining and construction companies, government and aid agencies.
“Mobile satellite services are becoming more mainstream, with journalists, oil & gas and other field workers using satellite terminals in larger numbers,” said Butler.
It supports contended (ie. best effort) data rates up to 512Kbps for standard data applications, such as web surfing, e-mail, VoIP, secure virtual private network (VPN), as well as guaranteed rates on demand up to 256Kbps for capacity-sensitive services such as live video broadcasts.
BGAN provides voice and high-speed data services and lets users set up broadband mobile offices in minutes wherever they are on the ground. For example, one of the Hughes terminals with integrated WiFi capacity supports up to 11 users.
It also allows field workers to communicate with their corporate networks via secure virtual private networks (VPN) connections – allowing them to send and receive e-mail, browse the Internet and other desktop applications and to make calls from a fixed satellite phone at the same time.
It uses small, lightweight and portable terminals for use by both single workers who move from place to place and by small teams working from temporary offices. Vehicle-mounted terminals are also available.
Systems integrators worldwide comprise an ecosystem for providing various applications for BGAN.
Where voice is the only requirement, there’s Inmarsat’s IsatPhone – currently an dual-mode Ericsson R190 GSM900 handset with satellite horn antenna enabling communication over terrestrial GSM networks where available or over Inmarsat.
Inmarsat partnered with Asia leading regional satellite communications provider, ACeS International in September 2006, thus extending ACeS coverage worldwide via ACeS Garuda 1 and Inmarsat-4 satellites.
Inmarsat built a new gateway to extend ACeS service coverage worldwide via its satellites.
ACeS (www.acesinternational.com), which went live with the launch of Garuda 1 satellite in 2000, is the world’s first dual-mode GSM-satellite phone service available throughout Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
From the beginning ACeS used the Ericsson R190 handset and the service has been available via partner Celcom in Malaysia for several years already.
EMS Satcom in Canada is developing a next generation handset with a GSM core module for other applications.
At the heart of BGAN is an Ericsson core network, so it will be compatible with 3G equipment and it’s possible to put a 3G SIM in a BGAN terminal to give users the choice of dual-mode communication via Inmarsat and terrestrial cellular networks and Inmarsat can offer cellular operators the option of global 3G coverage.
Meanwhile on 4 September, 208, emergency telecommunications aid agency Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) sent experts to Haiti in the wake of two devastating hurricanes Gustav and Hanna, which have killed over 100 people, might have affected over 650,000 people and seriously damaged telecommunications in that country.
The specialists carried BGAN mobile satellite terminals, phone and fax lines and all the necessary IT equipment to install emergency communication centres there.
Earlier on 13 August, specialists from the same Inmarsat-sponsored aid agency set
up the humanitarian calls service in emergency camps at the airport and in local schools in war-torn Georgia using BGAN terminals and other communications equipment.
BGAN terminals cost US$1,250, while vehicle mounted terminals cost US$5,000. Voice calls typically cost under US$1 per minute, while Inmarsat charges US$5 per MB on a per-use basis. Inmarsat does not offer unlimited data rates.
Average revenue per user (ARPU) ranges between US$400 and US$800 per month.
Ship and plane communications
Inmarsat also extends Inmarsat-4’s broadband data services to ships and planes through its respective FleetBroadband and SwiftBroadband services and as terminal cost and size comes down, making them more affordable to smaller vessels, such as fishing trawlers, yachts and other vessels, thanks to more processing and other power in the sky.
On 22 August, 2008 it was announced that a total of 2,500 Chinese fishing vessels would be equipped with Inmarsat Mini C terminals in the first stage of the China government’s Zhejiang project, which seeks to equip a total of 16,000 Chinese fishing vessels with satellite-based safety and communication services by the end of 2009.
FleetBroadband will also be the communications choice of the upcoming round the world Volvo Ocean Race, the first leg of which starts in Alicante on 11 October, 2008, with the final leg ending in St Petersburg on 27 June, 2009. The terminals will be used to upload high-definition TV files from the yachts but it won’t be live.
It provides a symmetric, always-on, data connection of up to 432Kbps per channel and in standard IP mode, the service is shared between other concurrent users on a best-effort basis.
Guaranteed quality-of-service at 32, 64, 128 or 256Kbps IP streaming data rates are also available, while higher bandwidths by combining channels, currently up to two per installation.
FleetBroadband also supports Voice-over-IP, TCP/IP packet data, Group 3 & Group 4 fax, access to e-fax applications, ISDN and circuit switched voice and it also serves as a backhaul satellite link for GSM, GPRS and 3G UMTS base stations on vessels.
“For example, a company called Blue Ocean Wireless puts GSM picocells on ships using Inmarsat’s Fleet Broadband in the backhaul,” said Butler.
The system is plug-and-play and connects to Inmarsat’s satellite terminal via an Ethernet cable.
The picocell provides GSM service on board and works in conjunction with Blue Ocean’s remote gateway which controls GSM signaling and call setup as well as SMS and GPRS functionality, and also manages ship-to shore data & voice communication over the satellite link.
Besides that, FleetBroadband also provides the crew with real-time electronic chart and weather updates, remote company intranet and Internet access, large file transfers, vessel & engine telemetry, videoconferencing and store-and-forward video.
Inmarsat’s maritime communication services also include its legacy narrowband services, such as FleetPhone, Fleet 33, Fleet 55 and Fleet 77 satellite terminals supporting up 64Kbps ISDN (or up to 128Kbps with two bonded channels), 4.8Kbps digital voice, up to 64Kbps mobile packet data service, fax and even SMS via third-party IP applications. There currently are a total of over 17,000 maritime terminals in service.
Aeronautical services
Over 8,000 aircraft have been using Inmarsat’s aeronautical services for nearly 20 years, including its Aero range of multi-channel voice, data and fax services, its Swift 64 packet data and 64Kbps ISDN per channel up to 256Kbps with channel bonding and SwiftBroadband since 2007.
It costs US$100,000 to equip an aircraft to provide services for the crew and passengers.
For the crew it provides safety services such as Controller/Pilot Datalink Communications Surveillance, voice communications; flight plan, weather and chart updates; engine performance monitoring and fault reporting for major systems; general operation planning; customer relationship information support; crew reporting and general administration.
For passengers there’s seat-back phones, VoIP and text messaging and like on ships, picocells can be installed on planes, enabling mobile phone calls, text messaging and use of Blackberry devices in the air.
Besides that there’s in-flight Internet and intranet access, instant messaging, in-flight news and entertainment updates.
Like FleetBroadband, SwiftBroadband offers simultaneous voice and standard IP data up to 432Kbps per channel. There currently are 2 channels per aircraft.
IP data streaming is also available with guaranteed speeds of 32, 64 and 128Kbps, which can be combined for higher data rates and this is available thanks to the narrow spotbeams of Inmarsat-4 satellites.
“SwiftBroadband may require regulatory compliance in certain countries but so far, Emirates Airlines has already launched it, Ryan Air went live with it in 20 aircraft from the end of June and Air Asia has signed up to use it for fixed broadband,” said Butler.
It’s currently on trial with Air France, while Australian airline Quantas has conducted trials of text messaging and data with an older service.-Comm & Tech Asia
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