For 30 years, Inmarsat has been a leader in mobile satellite communication systems. Nearly everyone is familiar with sat-phones and the service provided by a permanently installed dish. Recently, the company introduced a new satellite communications tool—Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN). The system, essentially a portable satellite terminal, is well-suited for regions where terrestrial/cellular coverage is patchy or unavailable.

A compact terminal, ranging in size from a thick paperback book to a laptop, enables as many as 11 users working remotely to send and receive data across a high-speed connection while simultaneously receiving and sending voice calls and also high-speed data connections. “The best way to think of it is as an IP [Internet protocol] connection up and down to a satellite and the users do what they want with it—teleconferencing, streaming video, Internet, etc,” said Simon Curran, business development manager, Inmarsat.

Technically, BGAN offers a standard IP with variable bit rate service up to 492 kbps (send and receive) for data. For streaming video (or applications that require it), it has guaranteed bit rate service available on demand with 32, 64, 128 and 256 kbps (send and receive). The voice communications are 4-kbps circuit switched service with voicemail, call waiting, forwarding, barring and holding. The broadcast voice quality is 3.1 kHz and it also supports ISDN. The BGAN can also send and receive text messages up to 160 characters SMS.

BGAN’s Launch Pad software was designed to be easy to use.

Staying Connected in Remote Regions
Obviously mining oftentimes takes place in regions where terrestrial and cellular service is either nonexistent or undependable, but where this system would be most applicable is with exploration geologists and initial installations. For one mining company, headquartered in Toronto, with exploration licenses in West Africa and South America, BGAN offers connectivity in real time.

At the moment, Inmarsat covers 85% of the world’s land mass. “We recently launched our third I4 satellite that will give us coverage for 95% of the world’s land mass,” Curran said. “At the moment, one of the slivers we do not have is eastern Australia. We are in the process of getting the third satellite into its correct orbit so that we have true global coverage. The only area that we never cover would be the poles. We operate our satellites as geo-stationary, meaning that they maintain a constant orbit over the equator. The look angle will never drop over the poles, but everywhere else in the world will be covered.” The 95% coverage will be available by 2009.

Inmarsat operates on a wholesale model. In addition to working with Inmarsat, mining companies would also have to work with a local provider. “We wholesale connectivity to our satellites and this is then retailed by a local service provider,” said Curran. “They bring an additional level of expertise. The Inmarsat value-add would be to help them to identify the applications the mining companies would use. We also have solution laboratories where we have third party equipment that we test and optimize with BGAN terminals that can be taken into the field for the mining customers.” The local service providers would also make the mining companies aware of all licensing issues.

The cost for the system depends on how much airtime and how many features are purchased and how much they are used. “We sell the air time to the service provider,” Curran said. “Mining companies purchase a terminal and then pay a fee per megabit to transmit over the network. The costs are certainly a value compared to not having communications in these regions. To purchase the terminal, prices would start at around $1,500.”

BGAN would not be the core installation for the mine. Eventually a mining company would want to install VSAT for a permanent installation with a large dish at the mine. “Where we see BGAN fitting into mining operations is during exploration,” said Curran. “From an exploration geologist’s perspective, the older solution when doing the initial field surveys was to collect the data and get to an urban center with a broadband connection and upload the information. That takes time—time that could have been better spent performing more surveys. BGAN would allow that information exchange in real time from the mining camp. The geologists perform the survey. They point the terminal and send the information. If they have a bad sensor or corrupt data, they can quickly redo the survey and resend the data. They can also take real-time directions from a remote office location.”

As the mine becomes more established, the longer term solution would be a permanent installation, such as VSAT. If the site is not sufficiently secure, however, the VSAT, which is an expensive piece of gear, might not be there in the morning. BGAN is portable. In the evening, it goes with the owner back to the hotel. BGAN would also eliminate the need to pay the hotel’s $14/day charge for the Internet connectivity.

BGAN allows up to 11 users to work simultaneously from one terminal and at the same time they can send and receive voice calls. “They are all contending for the 0.5 MB, but we have tested it with up to 11 users and they can work remotely from this terminal,” Curran said.

Assistance in the Field
The BGAN interface (Launch Pad) is fairly simple to operate. When the user launches Launch Pad on their PC, a GPS signal shows where the terminal is located on a map and then it shows the user where the satellites are located. It gives a basic angle and direction to point the unit. A series of beeps helps identify the strength of the signal. Once a link is established, the users can choose background IP, voice calls, stream video, text messages, etc. “It is designed to be simple to use,” Curran said. “We have over 20,000 units in use now and the feedback is that it’s child’s play.”

In addition to routine uses for communications, BGAN can also be used for security and to solve problems. Working with IP security cameras, the terminal can be used as a remote surveillance unit to protect workers and assets. The cameras record and, if there’s an incident, a mine engineer gets a text message on a mobile phone. The engineer goes to the Web and uses the satellite to backhaul some of the footage and open a voice channel to talk to miners on site.

The system could also be used to further efforts for social/corporate responsibilities. “During a course of extreme disruption, air time and terminals could be given to local communities,” Curran said. “Schools in remote regions could have access to the Internet. The mining companies with mines located in remote regions could use BGAN to allow miners to maintain relationships with loved ones.”

The system also works well with the Frontline Communicator, a camera attached to a headset with a PDA. The video camera streams video back to the head office. “If someone at the mine sites becomes afflicted with a manageable medical condition, they can spark up a video channel to a doctor at a remote location,” Curran said. “Likewise, with an equipment failure, rather than dispatching an engineer from Australia to Gabon, they just open a video and voice channel and liaise with the engineer remotely.”

VSAT operates on the C band or the KU band and both of those bands can be affected by climatic conditions, such as hurricanes or dust storms. BGAN, which operates on the L band, could be used as a back up. “The L band is never affected by climatic conditions,” Curran said.

A VSAT dish usually requires professional installation. “It would not be unusual for a mine in an area prone to seismic activity— earthquakes or frequent blasting—to knock the VSAT out of position,” Curran said. “Again, the BGAN could act a as back up until a professional VSAT engineer could come out and realign the dish.”

Inmarsat sees a lot of activity from BGAN users in in Africa, Latin America, northern Canada, the Australian Bush, China, Russia, and the CIS—anywhere where commerce is taking place without terrestrial and cellular coverage. That’s a surprisingly large amount of the globe that also includes parts of Texas and Nevada.