isatphone Pro will offer satellite telephony, with Bluetooth for hands-free use, voicemail, and text and email messaging. Location data will also be available to the user to look up or send in a text message.

Although it looks and feels like a modern GSM mobile phone, isatphone Pro is designed primarily for professional users in the government, media, aid, oil and gas, mining and construction sectors.

Tariam’s Business Development Manager Neil Waugh said

“We’re extremely excited about isatphone Pro because its means we can bring the fantastic flexibility of satellite communications to a new group of mobile users. Most of us remember satellite phones that were like the early cellular phones, expensive, very heavy, and complicated to use.

“isatphone Pro is very small, works anywhere, its simple to use and has great battery life. It’s the first handset to be purpose-built for the Inmarsat network.

The isatphone Pro handset has been developed by Inmarsat in conjunction with Sasken Communications Technologies, which has led development programmes for most of the world’s top mobile phone manufacturers. Elcoteq, the world’s third largest manufacturer of mobile phones, has been appointed to manufacture isatphone Pro at its facility in Tallinn, Estonia.

Neil went on to say

“We’ll be offering the phone from June 2010 with call packages similar to those you see on the high street for normal mobile phones. Although it’s a completely unique offering, the price will be extremely keen and we expect it to become one of our best selling products”.

SCIAC (pronounced SKY-ACK) has been designed and manufactured by Tariam in response to customer demands for a lightweight, Deployable Communications System (DCS) with global functionality.

The device which mates hardware based on Inmarsat’s BGAN satellite communications platform with an innovative power supply designed to work from any available power, and CESG and FIPS approved encryption, provides portable, robust voice and data communications, literally anywhere.

Tariam’s Military and Aerospace Director Selwyn Petterson said

“Our customers often have to deploy at a moments notice into environments that are at best complex, and frequently very remote.

“SCIAC’s design brief was for a rugged, compact and portable unit that could be carried as hand luggage onto any flight, and then when the user reaches their destination, can be online for suitably encrypted data and voice communications within minutes, whatever the local infrastructure. It’s affectively a guaranteed, confidential networking solution for places with non existent or flaky wired connectivity.

“The product set has completed formal evaluations by the UK Government CESG Assisted Products Scheme (CAPS) at “Enhanced Grade” standard, suitable to protect data up to short term SECRET, and is formally approved in the MoD’s Defence Infosec Products Co-operation Group (DIPCOG) scheme. We do expect quite a few SCIAC’s to find their way to Afghanistan over the next few weeks”.

SCIAC is available with a wide range of options dependent on the user’s likely working environment, and the number of users they wish to cater for.

Tariam SCIAC is available now with a variety of encryption standards and airtime plans to suit individual user’s profiles.

Speaking from their new offices and demo lab in Weston on the Green, Oxfordshire MD Andrew Walwyn said

“BGAN was already a unique and dynamic product, but X-Stream coming online takes it to a completely different level. Our peak streaming data rates on portable BGAN’s is now a minimum of 384kbps, right up to 450kbps on demand. These are the fastest ‘on demand’ streaming rates in the world of mobile satellite communications.

“Customers don’t need any special new hardware or different terminals to access the new services, any existing Thrane Explorer 700 or Hughes 9201 terminal will provide access to X-Stream. This is all with one unit, one IP address that works anywhere in the world”.

Tariam offers mobile broadband and voice connectivity globally via its BGAN services which provide synchronous broadband data up to half a megabit with simultaneous high quality voice calls, ISDN and G4 fax, all in one portable laptop sized unit.

Tariam BGAN customers can access the new X-Stream services straight away, but should ensure that they’ve downloaded the latest version of the free BGAN Launchpad software to ensure optimum delivery. Version 3.9.3 has just become available which supports Windows Vista and XP.

Andrew also said

“The availability of new X-Stream option coincides with the launch of our ecommerce facilities for BGAN, allowing customers to buy hardware securely online, as well as accessing online billing, invoicing and support through the same industry leading portal. The availability of X-Stream means customers can dispense with expensive SNG trucks and provide quality video streams from one compact unit.

“BGAN is a very important product for us, we’re investing a lot in new supplementary equipment for the platform, and it’s important that we have state of the art support services in place to give our customers the best possible BGAN solution”.

Tariam has been looking to relocate for some time to bring its Operations, R & D, Provisioning, Billing and Tech Support functions all under one roof, and to create a demonstration lab where customers can come and test offerings, and talk to technical staff before making a decision to buy.

Managing Director Andrew Walwyn said

“I’ve always thought a ‘Try-before-you-buy’ scheme would work well in the satellite arena where people are often looking at commitment to a product they’ve never used or seen before.

“The idea is customers can come in with their PC’s or MAC’s and test their own applications to see how good the latest systems are. They can experience how satellite would work for them if they bought the product”.

Tariam currently offers 6 different satellite platforms on numerous different satellites depending on what kind of connectivity the customer needs, whether they’re domestic or business users, and whether voice or data or a combination of the two are important.

Andrew went on to say

“We’re expanding the range of options that customers can come and try all the time but we already have our Homenet (powered by TooWay) home user product running here, as well as our iaccess, iconnect and BGAN options.

“We also have new demonstration facilities going live in November ’09 in Clough Road, Hull and just off Junction 5 of the M77 in Glasgow so wherever you are, there’s a Tariam demo facility within reasonable travelling distance. We just ask customers to let us know when they’re coming so that we’re ready to welcome them”.

Voice over IP (VoIP) is also being supported for the first time.

Homenet (powered by TooWay) is seen by many as the answer to the 9% of UK households still on dial-up and in the “not-spots” highlighted by Telecommunications Minister Lord Clark’s recent ‘Digital Britain’ address.

Lord Clark also conceded that “for up to 30% of the UK there is little or no commercial case for anyone to invest in the next generation of terrestrial broadband services”.

In this scenario, satellite based service like Homenet fill the digital divide and offer a true high-speed alternative.  Tariam’s Homenet service is expected to jump to 10 Mbps in 2010 when a new satellite is launched.

The new site features the latest technology in ecommerce and customer care; Tariam has invested in a new online billing and support system to back-up their best of breed satellite communications products.

Managing Director, Andrew Walwyn, said

“Tariam’s business has been built on the success of the previous two websites, but we started with a clean piece of paper and approached the new site from the perspective of the customer. We wanted to bring in the latest online systems to put us at the forefront of the industry with regards to ordering and customer support and to allow our customers new and old to communicate in the most efficient way with us.

“We also wanted new customers to be able to quickly and easily access the information they require, from wherever and whenever they hit the site”.

Tariam has introduced the ability to order online, with their new domestic product Homenet (powered by TooWay) with the best pricing package in Europe, which also allows customers to manage and view their billing through one secure online portal.

Andrew said “Often when customers come to us, speed of deployment as well as price is a key factor. With the new site and our new nationwide installation and support agreements in place, we can now deliver this very effectively”.

www.tariam.co.uk

Stratos Global Corp. (Stratos) announce that they have been aquired by Inmarsat plc (Inmarsat).

This means that Stratos is now a wholly owned operating division of the Inmarsat group.  However, Stratos will continue to operate independently for the foreseeable future.  Stratos state that they will remaim committed to offering and investing in their full range of mobile and fixed satellite services, developing our award-winning suite of value-added services and in continueing as the world’s trusted leader in vital communications.  Their existing distribution and supplier agreements for all of these services remain in place.

(British Association of Public Safety Communication Officers)

Satellite is far more expensive than 3G and offers a level of service that may only rarely need to be used. And for managers looking to cut costs, a move away from satellite is perhaps attractive. However, an assessment of the way satellite communications are used may be a more profitable option in terms of both level of service and costs.

Tom Wheeler, technical manager at Tariam Satellite Communications, admits that satellite communications services are an expensive option. “In the current economic environment, everyone rightly has an eye on costs. The problem is the words ‘cheap’ and ‘satellite’ cannot readily be used in the same sentence for business grade services.

This is because the cost of the satellites and the sophisticated infrastructure has to be passed on to the end customer, as well as the site equipment and basic connectivity. So when you are paying for your airtime and hardware, you are paying for a share of those costs as well. Satellites are expensive to build, launch and run, and the corresponding services are of the highest quality, as this is what the sector demands, and so it’s hard to make the services cheap.”

However, a shift in the type of technology being used may offer a future solution. Tariam’s Wheeler explains: “One of the key factors limiting bringing down the price of satellite communications is the current technology and available satellite capacity in the required spectrum. The vast majority of the satellite capacity for voice and data (IP)
communications over Europe, Africa and the Middle East is on Ku band. However, we are just launching the first services on Ka band in Europe. Because of the way the Ka spectrum works and the frequencies involved, this means we can put up to ten times more data over our network. It is massively more efficient in terms of what we can do, and so we can pass that cost reduction on to the end customer.

“At the moment, there is really only one satellite over Europe providing Ka band and there’s little spare capacity on it, but a new Ka band satellite will be launched in 2010 that will give us substantial more capacity and will enable us to make these reduced cost Ka services more widely available. Ka band equipment is smaller, cheaper and simpler. As a result of the frequencies used, dish sizes are smaller. From the other perspective, much higher
levels of bandwidth can be made available over relatively small and inexpensive equipment. So, over the next few years, the cost of airtime and hardware will reduce significantly, but realistically we won’t see commercial enterprise and government-level Ka-based services being made available much before Q1 2011.”

© The BAPCO Journal.

Reproduced with the kind permission of The BAPCO Journal.

BAPCO is a professional association that promotes the development of efficient and effective communications to provide value for money and effective systems to enhance delivery of public safety and civil contingency services for the benefit of the public and for the benefit of individual public safety and civil contingency services and personnel by means of research, planning, co-ordination and education.

Launched over a decade ago The BAPCO Journal is the only publication in the UK written exclusively for and on behalf of all communications and information technology officers and decision makers within the public safety sector. As the official publication of the British Association of Public Safety Communication Officers The BAPCO Journal serves to disseminate information on all aspects of communications and information technology.