Ramona Adams
Iridium Communications and Speedcast have entered an agreement that authorizes the latter to offer Iridium’s Certus satellite broadband service for land-based mobile operations.
Certus is designed to deliver real-time vehicle tracking, internet, phone and data transfer support for on-the-move vehicles, assets and teams, Iridium said Tuesday.
The satellite communications company unveiled the first batch of six Certus service providers in February and the second batch of six vendors earlier this month.
Tim Bailey, Speedcast executive vice president of products, marketing and business development, said Certus will complement the Speedcast Atlas managed services product line, which works to facilitate global communications.
Certus will be integrated with Thales‘ MissionLINK terminal, which is intended to help off-the-grid public safety, utility, oil and gas, military and non-government customers transition between satellite and cellular service as needed.
The mobile broadband offering is currently undergoing tests and will be introduced to the commercial market in various service classes.
Certus will initially provide 352 kilobits per second of speed and will be updated to deliver 704 Kpbs eventually.
Iridium has deployed more than half of the 66-satellite Iridium NEXT constellation, which will power Certus, and will conduct four more launches this year.
