Total communications network Inmarsat has signed its first partnership agreement with a Lebanon-based company, Triband Middle East (Offshore). With this agreement, Triband becomes an authorized distribution partner for Inmarsat Regional Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), the GPRS-compatible, mobile data communication service that Inmarsat launched late last year.
Traditionally focused on the mobile voice market , Triband ME adds to its existing services portfolio, with Regional BGAN, a new service, “one that complements our existing voice and low-speed data solutions and opens up business opportunities in brand new vertical markets,” said Triband ME’s Executive Vice President Maroun Chammas.
Launched to the Middle East in December 2002, Inmarsat’s Regional BGAN delivers data speed of up to 144kbit/s via a lightweight notebook-sized satellite IP modem with fixed or wireless connection to a PC or PDA.
Chammas added: “The mobility feature in Inmarsat Regional BGAN along with its fast data connectivity capability are perfect solutions to the majority of our customer base, highly mobile businesses and corporate travelers.”
Along with targeting its existing customers, Triband ME believes that Regional BGAN is a perfect solution for vertical industries whose business expansion into the rural areas of the region demands communication capabilities.
Chammas explained: ”the International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that only two percent of the Middle East and North African rural populations have access to terrestrial telephony facilities. If businesses are to expand out of the region’s urban centers, access to connectivity will be a major obstacle.”
He continued: “Regional BGAN overcomes these connectivity obstacles especially when vertical sectors such as finance and banking, tourism and manufacturing, are concerned.”
Inmarsat’s Regional BGAN allows businesses and governments to have access in the satellite footprint to mobile broadband services where no reliable high-speed data networks are available. It enables remote access to corporate networks, to the Internet, to e-mail, to Virtual Private Networks and to file transfers.
Triband is part of the Chammas Group of companies, one of the largest privately owned groups in the Near East, North America and Africa. Inmarsat Ltd owns and operates a global mobile satellite network and delivers its communications solutions through a worldwide network of approximately 260 distributors and other service providers operating in over 80 countries to end users in the maritime, land and aeronautical sectors. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
