Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch: Warfighters Need Access to Globally Available Satcom Capabilities

Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, senior vice president of government strategy and policy at Inmarsat Government, has said warfighters and government users in hostile and remote environments depend on resilient satellite communications platforms.

Cowen-Hirsch wrote in a Signal magazine piece published Monday that such satcom systems “must be accessible at a moment’s notice.”

She noted how government leaders acknowledge the value of commercial satcom capabilities through partnerships, acquisition reforms and recapitalization and how industry offers opportunities for ground, air and space communications through the U.S. Air Force’s Analysis of Alternatives.

Cowen-Hirsch said satcom-as-a-service “designed for global mobility” aims to provide warfighters with “a critical end-to-end communication infrastructure that a trusted single commercial operator owns and manages.”

“SATCOM as a Service enables users to instantly plug into a network that supports high bandwidth voice, data and video connectivity,” she noted.

“In addition, warfighters would benefit from communications similar to the ubiquity of services enjoyed on today’s smartphones—a seamlessly delivered, assured global experience that follows users wherever they go.”