Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch: Gov’t Should Leverage Commercial Innovation to Build Unified Satcom Architecture

Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch of Inmarsat Government has said government leaders and the satellite communications industry must continue to work together to facilitate the integration of commercial innovation into a unified satcom architecture.

Cowen-Hirsch, senior vice president for government strategy and policy at Inmarsat Government, wrote in a MilsatMagazine article how the U.S. Air Force’s Analysis of Alternatives effort highlights the urgency for a strong industry-government partnership to “ensure available solutions are fully considered as part of any recapitalization process.”

“Future integrated architecture depends on the reach, resilience and technology modernization of COMSATCOM as an essential element of mission assurance,” she wrote.

Cowen-Hirsch noted that the satcom industry has begun to make major investments in modular terminals to advance the adoption of an integrated architecture and discussed how the satcom-as-a-service model works to deliver end-to-end communications and eliminates budget uncertainty for clients.

Satcom-as-a-service “is designed with the government in mind,” she said.

“In addition, the SATCOM-as-a-Service model brings an end to the days of speculative SATCOM acquisition, when military operators had to ‘guess’ as to where and how much bandwidth they would use,” she added.