Business research and consulting firm Frost and Sullivan has presented SkyTerra, formerly called Mobile Satellite Ventures, with its 2009 North America Technology Innovation of the Year.
The award, part of the Frost and Sullivan Best Practices Awards Program, recognizes “SkyTerra’s pioneering efforts in developing an innovative technological solution for an integrated satellite-terrestrial communications network that potentially could dramatically improve the utility of wireless telecommunications worldwide.”
“We are honored to be recognized by Frost and Sullivan as a recipient of their Best Practices Award,” said Alexander H. Good, chairman, CEO and president of SkyTerra. “Our approach involves using a very powerful and spectrally efficient satellite system, which is made to appear virtually as a base station in the sky to subscriber equipment essentially identical to a standard cellular device. One of our main objectives is to ensure that the satellite element of the integrated service offering is as transparent to the end-user as possible.”
SkyTerra currently has two L-band satellites (MSAT-1 and MSAT-2), and has FCC authorization to build out an ancillary terrestrial network that would work with standard wireless devices. It holds authorizations for approximately 30 MHz of spectrum in North America. SkyTerra's next generation network plan will use two satellites: MSV-1 (United States) and MSV-2 (Canada). These will enable multiple spot-beam frequency re-use and communication with standard cellular handsets even when they are outside the range of terrestrial transmitters.
“SkyTerra’s next-generation hybrid network, combining cellular and satellite technologies, has significant potential for its distribution partners to offer differentiated services by providing nearly ubiquitous access to content and services,” said Anirudh Srinivasan, Frost and Sullivan research analyst. “SkyTerra’s network architecture approach will allow significantly greater flexibility for the provisioning of advanced services and devices, affording partners the opportunity to deliver a significantly enhanced end-user experience.”
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