Inmarsat's Worldwide Mobile Satellite Services: Today and Tomorrow

Abstract

Mobile-satellite communications, now available worldwide to maritime, aeronautical and land-mobile users, is an indispensable component of the fundamental evolution in mobile communications now in progress. Inmarsat is leading the mobile satellite evolution in the 90s through a wide-ranging portfolio of services, characterised by increasing portability through reduced weight and size of terminals, continuing reduction in cost of terminals and usage, greater integration with terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure, and improved spectrum utilisation. This paper describes the status of existing Inmarsat mobile satellite services, new services under implementation for introduction in the near-term, and also the longer-term plans including: by end of the decade, hand-held satellite phone.