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Press Release
14 April, 2003 |
AIRIA selects Telenor for its ground segmentAIRIA Ltd, the Inmarsat Ventures plc joint-venture company, is progressing with plans to deliver live television inflight with the announcement that it has taken delivery of its earth station transmission equipment. AIRIA has reached commercial agreements with Telenor Satellite Services (TSS), the world's preferred provider of global communications via satellite, which will host the AIRIA transmission equipment within its Southbury, Connecticut, (USA) land earth station for the pre-service phase with the intention to extend the co-operation to global coverage for the operational phase. Telenor is an ideal partner for AIRIA as its three earth stations, at Eik in Norway; Southbury and Santa Paula, California in the United States, will provide communications cover over the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean respectively. This earth station network fulfils the route coverage requirements of the world's long-haul airlines. The earth station transmission system was developed and built by SPCI, a privately-owned Canadian company which specialises in the manufacture of DSP-based ground and airborne communications products from audio to L-band, including satellite modems. By using Inmarsat's satellite network and the Inmarsat Aero H/H+ antenna already onboard most modern long-haul airliners, AIRIA is able to provide live television globally without launching new satellites, or installing new antennae onboard aircraft. This means that it can offer a simple, quick and cost effective deployment through broadband IFE multimedia solutions. AIRIA will simply transmit the multimedia signal via the Telenor earth stations to the Inmarsat satellites, which deliver the services to the aircraft, globally. "Telenor's global network and infrastructure provide a major competitive advantage to AIRIA to successfully deliver live television across the oceans in the very near future, " said Tore Hilde, chief executive officer of Telenor Satellite Services. "We are delighted to be working with AIRIA in this long term partnership and program." Echoing Telenor's commitment, SPCI's President and CEO Mike Gertsman added: "The AIRIA transmission system has been designed from the start to make maximum use of the existing Inmarsat infrastructure, affording airlines a low cost and simple implementation of live television. Over the next few months we will be working closely with AIRIA and Telenor to get all of the transmission equipment in place for the trials."
"What we are offering, together with our partners, Telenor, Inmarsat and SPCI, is an extremely straightforward
and cost effective solution for the world's airlines who want to offer Live Television globally," said
AIRIA Vice President Marketing Vardhan Rajkumar, and he continues, "This is a truly exciting global development
and we look forward to demonstrating our achievements to the world's airlines in a series of trials starting
in the USA this summer."
For further information contact
Telenor Satellite Services Is the world's preferred provider of global communications via satellite for
customers on land, at sea, and in flight. Telenor delivers high-speed data, voice and video communications and
offers an innovative portfolio of value-added services including, prepaid calling solutions, easy Internet access
with e-mail and direct calling to Inmarsat terminals. Telenor also offers
The Sourcesm, a web-based account
management system available exclusively to Telenor Service Providers. Telenor Satellite Services owns and operates
a global network of land earth stations located at Eik (Norway) and Southbury (Connecticut) and
Santa Paula, California, in the United States, and uses the satellite systems of Inmarsat, Intelsat, and Iridium for
its services.
SPCI is a private Canadian company, federally incorporated in June 1995. It specialises in the development
and manufacture of DSP-based ground and airborne communications products from audio to L-band, including Satellite
modems, Turbo decoders and complete channel units. SPCI has grown and earned its reputation by quickly turning
around mobile satellite systems and equipment for clients including Inmarsat, AIRIA and the European Space Agency.
Other customers include Honeywell, Rockwell-Collins, Nera, Thrane & Thrane, EMS, ECI, ARINC, JRC, VOA, BBC, Telia
and TRL.
AIRIA Ltd, an Inmarsat Ventures plc joint venture company, based in London, UK and Annapolis, Maryland, US,
has developed a cost-effective solution to develop global live airline inflight entertainment using existing
infrastructure on board long haul commercial airliners in service today. The company will initially offer the
television channel BBC World for live international news.
Inmarsat Ventures
Inmarsat Ventures plc owns and operates a global satellite network and distributes its solutions through a worldwide
group of service providers to end customers in the maritime, aeronautical and multinational corporate sectors.
The Group's principal operational areas are: Global mobile satellite communications, transportable broadband
communications solutions and the provision of content and applications to its key markets. |
