The first services have been successfully migrated to the new Alphasat satellite, covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Inmarsat’s Global Satellite Phone Services (GSPS) were migrated on the 19 of November at 21:40UTC during a scheduled maintenance window.
GSPS services – IsatPhone Pro, IsatPhone Link and FleetPhone – are now provided via Alphasat from its in-service orbital location at 25 degrees East.
After the migration, customers were able to make voice calls and set up data connections in the usual way, requiring no additional action by end-users.
The migration to Alphasat was postponed by one week to eliminate the risk of impact on the humanitarian response to the crisis caused by Typhoon Haiyan.
“We delayed the migration to ensure our network resources were fully focused on supporting the humanitarian response,” said Claudio Galli, Director, Global Service Operations.
“Every operational activity, no matter how carefully prepared and executed, bears an inherent risk to disrupt traffic.
“Guaranteeing the highest service availability is Inmarsat’s first and foremost priority especially over areas affected by a major natural disaster where communications services are at core of the humanitarian response.”
Alphasat, which blasted off from Kourou in French Guiana in July, is the most technologically advanced mobile communications satellite launched to date.
With 52 per cent more accessible L-band spectrum and 20 per cent additional capacity, Alphasat can handle more than 750 communications channels with improved quality, particularly for satellite phone users.
