Iridium Satellite Maritime
Iridium Satellite LLC has announced on June 3, 2008 that it latest traffic statistics for its growing maritime business show that this business segment has increased by a 20% annual rate.Iridium OpenPort, the company’s new maritime product, has begun sea trail on a number of ships, and full commercial availability is expected in the third quarter of this year. Iridium has already signed agreements with six service providers to sell Iridium OpenPort, and more are expected soon. Advance orders for Iridium OpenPort are running well ahead of sales projections, according to company reports.
Iridium executive vice president Greg Ewert , Global Distribution Channels, Iridium Satellite stated in a recent press release: “We are rapidly increasing our share in the maritime satcom market as more ship-owners and managers migrate to Iridium, driven by our unique value proposition of ubiquitous global coverage, high network reliability and cost-effective hardware and service pricing.” “In large measure, this growth is attributable to our service partners, who have developed a wide range of Iridium service offerings tailored to customer requirements, including voice, data, prepaid scratch cards, crew email, SMS instant messaging, ship security alert systems and vessel tracking systems.”
“With the launch of our new Iridium OpenPort℠ optimized-bandwidth voice and data service, we are poised to capture an even larger share of the burgeoning market for higher-speed data.”
“While our core satellite voice and data business continues on a solid growth path, the biggest driver of our growth is mobile data,” said Ewert. “Our short-burst data traffic in the maritime sector grew by an astounding 107 percent last year, propelled by new emerging markets such as vessel tracking, especially in the commercial fisheries, and oceanographic and weather telemetry from buoys and underwater sensors. We also see considerable growth potential in long-range information and tracking as well as container tracking and security.”
Iridium has announced that it is currently working to define and develop its next-generation satellite constellation. The new next-generation satellite network is expected to be completed in 2016. Named “Iridium NEXT,” the new network will leverage the latest satellite and wireless technologies to provide powerful new devices for commercial and government users. Iridium expects to incorporate secondary payloads, such as weather and oceanographic sensors, onto its new satellites. In March, Iridium announced that it had narrowed its search for major technology partners for Iridium NEXT to three companies – Lockheed Martin, Space Systems Loral and Thales Alenia Space. The company will make its final selection by early 2009.
posted by David & Brooke @ 11:17 AM
