[SatBroadcasting(tm)] Stratos Global is providing the world’s largest media organizations with Inmarsat BGAN mobile broadband satellite service to broadcast ongoing coverage of the Chilean Mine Rescue.

BGAN streaming services are being used by broadcasters, including the BBC and Fox News, for live video streaming from the remote mine site. The broadcasters also are using BGAN for store-and-forward video clips as well as audio streaming for radio broadcast. All BGAN traffic is routed via the Stratos global IP network, known as StratosNexus, into the broadcasters’ headquarters offices worldwide. These organizations began broadcasting news reports from the remote San Jose mine in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert soon after the 33 miners became trapped on August 5th. Their coverage continued Oct. 13th when the last of the miners was rescued.

BGAN from Stratos enables media organizations to perform at optimal levels at any remote location imaginable. Journalists can effectively use BGAN services with minimal training. The premium BGAN X-Stream service is commercially available worldwide. It allows a guaranteed minimum symmetrical video streaming rate of 384 kbps, with up to 450 kbps expected under optimal conditions. For this event, these news organizations make full use of Stratos’ value-added services known as The Stratos Advantage, which enable customers to monitor airtime, restrict unauthorized usage and manage costs. The organizations also achieve guaranteed, end-to-end bandwidth for their time-critical data with a Stratos GuaranteedAccess solution custom designed by Stratos engineers. Stratos GuaranteedAccess extends guaranteed bandwidth from the BGAN terminal through to the terrestrial infrastructure to broadcast centers. Stratos GuaranteedAccess is enabled by StratosNexus, a Stratos-managed Global Core network for traditional and IP-based services. StratosNexus is a redundant and highly resilient network, designed and optimized to carry time-sensitive satellite traffic.

During this rescue effort, Stratos continually monitored StratosNexus and provided frequent status reports to its media customers. Inmarsat also took measures to ensure the usual high level of availability and reliability of its Inmarsat-4 satellite network throughout the rescue effort. This announcement is the latest example of how Stratos has helped many of the world’s largest media organizations benefit from BGAN X-Stream since the service was launched last year.