Beta Test First Mobile Internet Satellite Broadband, Part II

We were the first beta testers of a Mobile Command Center with full Internet access in 1999. Our Mobile Command Center was also the first unit with WiFi and mobile Internet access.

The next generation of this broadband satellite system was introduced in 2004. And the next wave of technology is almost there for 10 times that speed. It appears that Moore’s Law can be applied to satellites, however with Motorola’s past practice and the FCC incompetence we saw above, we may find that there are still significant hurdles to overcome.

The biggest complaint at the time was Iridium’s price of $134.50 per month and the ridiculous $1.34 per minute. Of course, GlobalStar shows that they are worse than 150 per month and 1.39 per minute and international calls at $1.79. The good thing about Inmarsat is that it is 20 years old and still has the data rate of 9.6kbps and sometimes you can get all 64kbps. Inmarsat A is old and 18,000 ships have the Global Maritime Distress system on board. GMDSS. If you look at most commercial ships, you’ll see the antennas on top that can run fax machines, phones, and various data interfaces. Previously, they operated Telex systems below deck. This system, as you might guess, is purely analog, which has many advantages in weather conditions at sea. Inmarsat B is a whole different story with its digital technology, you can definitely get 64 KBPS around the clock to stream audio, video (a bit jittery) and voice and fax transmissions.

The price of data transmission due to speeds can save users up to 40% simply because it takes less time per minute to download and upload data. Of course the hardware is around $10K, but for what it is that’s not bad considering the original costs of the data streams. Now here’s the new Inmarsat C deal, two-way data communications, the terminals are portable and small, briefcase style. Terminal costs are only $4K approx. and everyone in the TV business has one or more. Inmarsat also has a system for voice, which only needs a small antenna of 9.3 inches or more and comes in a small dome. These were recently introduced at Popular Mechanics in November 2001. Trac Phone antennas for boats, RVs, etc. They cost $6500 but they work fine. This is also known as the mobile SatCom system. It is a briefcase portable system and weighs only 5 lbs. It costs only $3,000. People call it their phone bag. It uses one SIM card for multiple users, a system that, if you’ll remember, never really took off in the US like smart card phones did in Europe. Remember that PCS phones had that little slider card, but they were too expensive for mass production with cellular technology. Inmarsat F77 is another innovation of 2001. ISDN and mobile packet data service capabilities. Sending fax, telephone, voice and data. 64kbs, Absolutely and no problem. Almost trouble free, this is almost fully operational. We are almost there. This technology takes advantage of the B-GAN services that will be provided by the Inmarsat 4 to be launched in 2004.

This will be great. ComSat Mobile, a division of US-based Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications, announced its cooperation with Fleet F77 in the first half of 2002. Ah ha, are we getting anywhere now? The people of Stratos say that they are arrogant Canadians. Why is this so cool? It means that users can send and receive data, but they will only be charged for the data sent and received. Use the broadband web from anywhere or even from a remote log cabin on vacation, emails and web browsing for about $89.95 per month, all in real time with delays of about 2-3 seconds per distance or other system, the one we have now will be a half-second delay with even higher speeds (more on that in a minute). Internet-based systems like this mean we can track every terrorist ship, truck, school bus in the country in real time, just like they now track every plane like we saw on TV during the 9/11 event. We saw charts of the US with every plane flying.

Imagine the capabilities of the system for efficiency, security, storm and weather observation, and the safety of our people. I really like this a lot and everyone in the United States will be safe and the president can have his missile defense program because we will be able to track everything that moves that is not hidden and right now that is all we know. We can even track stealth bombers by frequency outage patterns from cell phones. We won. Guess what these systems have a built-in kill switch, so important transmissions arrive first, for example, an offshore ship in trouble, the DEA transmits while profiling a smuggler, or mayday distress calls. So if you’re surfing or emailing online, it’s going to be delayed until security priorities are addressed and at those speeds and user numbers and the next Craig McCaw Law I predict will replace Moore’s Law for satellites that won’t be more than a nano second by 2005. In other words, it will assume a solar flare or even a thunder cloud.

Orbicomm is another non-voice capable data source and handles two page and alphanumeric operations using a small network of LEO satellites. Another website that we found of interest to you if you are using any of these technologies.

End Part II