...maritime customers throughout South America through Tesacom, South America’s leading mobile satellite service provider. The new relationship will be managed by Andesat S.A., a leading communications provider in the Andean region. Tesacom will offer KVH’s solutions from its offices in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Panama and Peru to offshore commercial fishermen and oil and gas operators, as well as inland waterway vessels working on the Paraná River.

“KVH’s mini-VSAT Broadband service will allow us to offer an attractive and affordable broadband service to meet the growing connectivity needs of our diverse maritime customer base,” said Jose Antonio Sanchez Elia, CEO at Tesacom. “With the mini-VSAT Broadband service, we will be able to provide a proven solution with small antennas, fast data rates, and global coverage that will work well for both large and small vessels, completing our broad offering of solutions.” Tesacom will offer KVH’s TracPhone V-series onboard terminals and mini-VSAT Broadband service to their customers. The mini-VSAT Broadband service is unique in that it uses ArcLight spread spectrum technology developed by KVH’s satellite technology partner, ViaSat (Nasdaq: VSAT). The spread spectrum technology enables use of antennas as small as 37cm for the Ku-band service and as small as 1m for the combined C/Ku-band coverage. Although significantly smaller, these antennas match the coverage and speed of much larger maritime VSAT antennas using older services based on time division multiple access (TDMA) technology. With onboard equipment as small and affordable as L-band systems, the power of fast, affordable VSAT service is rapidly becoming the preferred option for large segments of the maritime market that were formerly limited to expensive legacy satellite communications services.

Since launching the mini-VSAT Broadband service in late 2007, KVH has fielded one of the world’s broadest Ku-band VSAT networks, using 14 Ku-band satellite transponders to provide a seamless web of multimegabit coverage. The service will soon cover 95 percent of the Earth, including all of the oceans bordering southern South America, with the addition of coverage from three overlayed, global C-band transponders and a unique dual-mode TracPhone system that seamlessly switches between C- and Ku-band frequencies. In most regions, vessels enjoy redundant coverage to assure robust connectivity.

KVH is the only maritime VSAT provider to manufacture its own fully integrated onboard terminal and network manager, operate a global C/Ku-band VSAT network, and provide worldwide 24/7/365 after-sale support. The ability to control every aspect of its equipment and network has enabled KVH to field the world’s premier global maritime VSAT network. In March 2012, the marketing research firm Euroconsult reported KVH leads the maritime VSAT market for number of customers using its service.