Stratos Global Corp., introduced its new BGAN SCADA service to provide high-performance connectivity for remote, unmanned SCADA applications. Stratos is a global provider of mobile and fixed-site remote communications solutions. The new service is the result of an agreement that names Stratos as the exclusive global distributor of Addvalue's new SABRE Ranger BGAN SCADA terminal. Addvalue is a designer and global supplier of BGAN terminals.

The new Stratos BGAN SCADA service offers supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) solutions to support the upstream oil & gas, utility, mining, water-management and tower-monitoring markets. The service will be commercially available in Q1 2009.

Stratos distributes of Inmarsat's BGAN (Broadband Global Area Network) service, an L-band mobile satellite offering that uses portable, lightweight terminals to provide simultaneous, high-speed data (up to 492 kbps) and voice connectivity anywhere in the world. BGAN is ideally suited to enable communications in areas where terrestrial or cellular networks are damaged, congested, non-existent or too difficult to deploy.

The SABRE Ranger is a ruggedized, compact BGAN terminal that withstands all environmental challenges associated with remote SCADA applications. It is designed to reliably transmit mission-critical data to the user's corporate headquarters from hard-to-reach locations.

The Stratos BGAN SCADA service complements DataSat II from Stratos, the Company's Ku-band, VSAT-based SCADA service introduced earlier this year. The Stratos BGAN SCADA service can serve as a network-independent backup solution to DataSat II, ensuring seamless connectivity in case of extreme weather. More than 10,000 Stratos VSAT-based SCADA terminals have been deployed for a wide range of markets nationwide.

The Stratos BGAN SCADA solution is based on the global Inmarsat BEGAN service and is well suited for regions such as Africa and South America where VSAT-based SCADA systems may be too difficult to deploy, due to regulatory obstacles or lack of space-segment availability. The Stratos BGAN SCADA service supports applications for data collection and monitoring of remote assets including utility substations and oil or gas pipelines. In addition to custom solutions, Stratos also offers enhanced IP or serial polling and 24x7 network monitoring from its Network Operations Center (NOC).