Jane Edwards
Iridium Communications has unveiled its L-band broadband service powered by the company’s $3B Iridium NEXT satellite network.
The company said Wednesday initial activations of the Iridium Certus service kicked off in December 2018 for terrestrial and maritime applications with the aviation service expected later this year once certification is secured.
Iridium Certus “will enable us to provide broadband connections to teams, vehicles and the important IoT ‘things’ that are in the 80-plus percent of the world that lacks cellular coverage," said Iridium CEO Matt Desch.
"Adoption of this new service by our partners has already begun, and it has been eagerly anticipated by every target industry,†added Desch, a 2019 Wash100 winner.
The company has introduced the Iridium Certus 350 offering designed to deliver voice and internet services at 352 kilobits per second to compact terminals used in ground and maritime applications with plans to offer the Certus 700 service with a broadband speed of 704 Kbps.
Iridium has authorized 35 service providers to offer broadband service worldwide.
Terminal manufacturers include Cobham, Thales, Collins Aerospace, L3 Technologies, Satcom Direct and Gogo.
The launch of Iridium Certus came nearly a week after the last and eighth batch of 10 Iridium NEXT satellites took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
