The new service delivers a significantly enhanced streaming rate, providing a step-change in video quality for journalists reporting from remote regions or areas where the existing communications infrastructure is unreliable or damaged. Building on the heritage of the BGAN platform, launched in 2005, and BGAN X-Stream, launched in 2009, BGAN HDR supports a portfolio of four new streaming rates, including asymmetric services to ensure broadcasters only pay for the throughput they need.

The BGAN HDR service will complete performance testing in September and is scheduled to ‘go live’ globally in November 2013. Its full channel option will provide broadcasters with an expected streaming rate of around 650kbps, while Cobham SATCOM’s EXPLORER 710, the first terminal to access the HDR service, has a built-in bonding capability, enabling connection speeds above 1Mbps—previously only possible on a VSAT uplink. BGAN HDR can also be used as a dependable back-up solution to cellular bonding, offering a simple to use but powerful support service should cellular services fail or become busy.

The compact and lightweight EXPLORER 710 is no bigger than a laptop computer and can be carried as hand baggage, allowing a journalist to set off at a moment’s notice to cover a story virtually anywhere on the planet. The terminal is ‘plug and play’, so a journalist can establish a connection back to base within a few minutes of arriving.

Inmarsat will be demonstrating BGAN HDR live on stand 2.B19 in Hall 2 at IBC 2013.