25 March 2015: Inmarsat (LSE:ISAT.L) today announced the successful transition of key voice and broadband data services for the EMEA region from Inmarsat-4 F2 (I-4 F2) to Alphasat, Europe’s largest and most sophisticated telecommunications satellite.
The services transitioned overnight (24-25 March), during a regular maintenance window for EMEA region, include four of Inmarsat’s market-leading mobile satellite communication services; FleetBroadband (for maritime), SwiftBroadband (for aviation), BGAN (for land-based communications), and Classic Aero. Inmarsat’s GSPS services for EMEA were successfully transitioned to Alphasat in November 2013.
Alphasat was built through a public–private partnership (PPP) between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Inmarsat, and remains one of the largest PPP telecom projects in Europe. It was constructed under the ESA initiative to provide a new spacecraft platform (Alphabus), capable of carrying the largest state-of-the-art communications payload.
Alphasat and I-4 F2 will continue to jointly provide services over the EMEA region until the transition of the last two services – L-TAC1 and IsatData Pro2 – scheduled to be completed by the end of Q2 2015. Following this, I-4 F2 will be flown to a new orbital position to create a fourth L-band region, serving the Middle East and Asia (MEAS). The new region is on course to begin commercial services by the end of the year and will support BGAN, FleetBroadband, SwiftBroadband and GSPS services.
Stephane Lascar, Head of ESA’s Telecommunication Satellite Programmes Department, said: “Alphasat was and is a hugely ambitious project for ESA. Every element, from its advanced Integrated Processor to hosted payloads demonstrating cutting-edge technology, is marked by innovation and made possible through successful cooperation.
1 L-TAC extends the capabilities of existing in-service military and civilian government tactical radios to access Beyond Line of Sight communication without the need to modify the radio hardware or cryptography.
2 IsatData Pro provides a two-way short message service for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.