Inmarsat takes a leap forward with ELERA, the global network for IoT, safety and connectivity

Inmarsat has recently unveiled its global narrowband network, Inmarsat ELERA, as its second major announcement in two weeks. ELERA is ideally suited to the rapidly evolving world of the Internet of Things (IoT), and for global mobility customers, including maritime, aviation, governments and select enterprises.

Building on the businesses global leadership in L-band satellite services, this announcement is said to be hugely significant for the yachting industry, inspiring “new possibilities for customers across a range of sectors, from superyachts to explorer vessels, to professional and amateur racing yachts.”

Ronald Spithout, president of Inmarsat Maritime, also said “ELERA will keep yachters in touch with friends and family, provide access to weather reports and navigation charts, enable email and business-critical applications and enhance crucial safety-of-life communications at sea, where they are voyaging.”

ELERA builds on Inmarsat’s number one position in Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) and will be a springboard for innovation, unlocking, accelerating and scaling pioneering use cases at sea, on land and in the air. Incorporating new innovations ranging from higher speeds to smaller, low-cost terminals, the first of its previously announced Inmarsat-6 satellites are scheduled to launch before the end of the year.

This comes just 14 days after Inmarsat announced ORCHESTRA, the world’s first network to combine GEO, LEO and 5G into one harmonious global communications solution. ELERA is a signal of a business with momentum, delivering major technological innovations and growth.

Rajeev Suri, CEO of Inmarsat, commented “ELERA is perfectly suited to the needs of the connected IoT world. Global reach, extraordinary resilience, faster speeds, smaller and lower cost terminals are all part of ensuring that we remain ahead of others in meeting the needs of our customers.

“ELERA is a further sign of a company with true momentum and one that is delivering new innovations and strong performance” continued Suri. “I expect that Inmarsat will grow strongly in 2021 compared to the previous year, and that growth will span most of our business units. Our progress was evident in the first half, where we saw strong growth in revenue and EBITDA and robust cash flow. We have sharpened our strategy to focus on driving growth, accelerate decision making, launch new innovations, and are creating a more commercially focused, customer-centric culture.”

ELERA, the network enhancing safety and connectivity at sea, is built on Inmarsat’s market leading L-band network, which already delivers the world’s most reliable and flexible global connectivity service with unique resilience in all conditions and full global redundancy.

Inmarsat is investing in new innovations to bring to the market in the near future, including spectrum management technology to deliver L-band speeds up to 1.7mbps, the smallest footprint, low-cost L-band terminal and two new L-band satellites, which are the largest and most sophisticated commercial communication satellites ever created. The new spectrum management capabilities (known as Carrier Aggregation) will outperform the capabilities of any other worldwide L-band network.

Inmarsat is launching two new satellites to enhance the ELERA network. The I-6 satellites, the first of which is scheduled to launch at the end of 2021, are the largest and most sophisticated commercial communications satellites ever built. The L-band capacity on each I-6 satellite will deliver 50% more capacity per beam, meaning that a larger amount of data can be carried over the same geographical area, in addition to unlimited beam routing flexibility.

There will also be a major extension to Inmarsat’s portfolio of voice-enabled devices, delivering new capabilities and innovations to hundreds of thousands of customers.

Suri continued, “ELERA is the exciting vision of how Inmarsat is planning to transform the capabilities offered to IoT and mobility customers for years to come and confirms our long-term commitment to L-band services. We will be sharing further details on these innovations with our partner community in the coming months and continue our programme of announcements as we achieve major milestones.”

The investments in ELERA are already included in Inmarsat’s current CAPEX plans and guidance.

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