Insight | Global Xpress SATCOM as a Service: Moving at the speed of modern missions, wherever they go

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Global Xpress SATCOM as a Service: Moving at the speed of modern missions, wherever they go

Government

Dylan Browne, Chief Commercial Officer at COMSAT, describes how they have been demonstrating the high-performing capabilities of GX to US government users across three different countries, in his guest blog.

Today’s government users require high-performing satellite communications (SATCOM) around the world. So we recently put our offerings to the test – on a global level.

Specifically, as a value added reseller (VAR) of Inmarsat Global Xpress, we demonstrated the service to U.S. government users in nine nations across three different continents: Japan, Bahrain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Philippines, Senegal, Mauritania and the U.S. We proved reliable SATCOM capability in all three environments – land, sea and air – while supporting the very latest in voice, video and data applications.

What’s more, we showed military community members how much easier Global Xpress makes their lives and helps them achieve their mission. We were able to test terminals at our COMSAT offices in Herndon, Virginia, and then quickly ship them to demo locations. Once there, we brought the terminals online within minutes. This is a welcome departure from traditional Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) procedures, which require operator intervention to reconfigure a terminal in order to function in a new geographic location. Subsequently, government users on the scene were able to take advantage of much easier set-up, along with the more rapid establishment of high-throughput connectivity.

They also learned about the benefits of Global Xpress SATCOM as a Service – an end-to-end managed service with 24/7/365 worldwide management, monitoring and support. SATCOM as a Service allowed demonstration participants to leverage commercial satellite communications (COMSATCOM) for core functions, while seamlessly integrating with MILSATCOM to address any remaining gaps for optimal redundancy, diversity, protection, scalability and portability. Functions included web browsing, email, file transmission and other bandwidth-intensive applications.

Through these demonstrations, users were able to get access to reliable, worldwide and easy-to-use wideband capability in the most geographically challenging environments. Having Global Xpress always on network allowed them to get the connectivity they needed, when and where they needed it – just plug and play. With committed information rates throughout the world and backed-up by service level agreements, they can proceed with confidence knowing that they always get what they need – and pay for.

To meet modern challenges, government users must stand ready to go anywhere, on a moment’s notice. They cannot afford to “wait around” for mission-critical satellite services; those services must “move” as fast as they do. With our recent demonstration, we are proving we can supply them with commercial SATCOM that can do just that.

About the author


Dylan Browne brings more than 25 years of experience in military, government and commercial satellite operations to his role as Chief Commercial Officer for COMSAT, Inc. He is responsible for both day to day operations of U.S. and International Mil/Gov programs, and the development of new services and markets.

Prior to his role at COMSAT, he was Chief Commercial Officer of the U.S. office of Airbus Defense and Space and Vice President Business Development and Marketing at Airbus headquarters managing business development for European MILSATCOM programs, which included the UK Ministry of Defense’s Skynet-5 contract.

Prior to his roles at Airbus, he held a number of systems engineering posts including a four year assignment at the European Space Agency for the launch and operations of the ERS and Envisat missions.