Three I-4 satellites make up the INMARSAT

BGAN The Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) is a global satellite network with telephony owned by Inmarsat using portable terminals. The terminals are normally used to connect a laptop computer to broadband Internet in remote locations, although as ...

FleetBroadband FleetBroadband is maritime satellite internet, telephony, SMS texting, and ISDN network for ocean-going vessels using portable domed terminal antennas. These antennas, and corresponding indoor controllers, are used to connect phones and laptop ...

and SwiftBroadband

communications network A telecommunications network is a group of nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit switching, messa ...

. They provide

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

and

telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...

connections anywhere on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

, except in

polar regions The polar regions, also called the frigid zones or polar zones, of Earth are the regions of the planet that surround its geographical poles (the North and South Poles), lying within the polar circles. These high latitudes are dominated by float ...

Data services

Two general types of data service are currently provided: #Streaming #Background

Streaming

Streaming is a guaranteed delivery style of service. A terminal requests a context of X

bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...

(currently 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, or 256

kbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

) and, if the current

spot beam A spot beam, in telecommunications parlance, is a satellite signal that is specially concentrated in power (i.e. sent by a high-gain antenna) so that it will cover only a limited geographic area on Earth. Spot beams are used so that only Earth stat ...

has enough resources available, it is allocated a guaranteed chunk of the available bandwidth. So if a request is made 8k streaming context, the terminal will, at all times, be able to send data at 8 kbit/s. As a result, streaming is billed based on time usage.

Background

Background is a

best-effort Best-effort delivery describes a network service in which the network does ''not'' provide any guarantee that data is delivered or that delivery meets any quality of service. In a best-effort network, all users obtain best-effort service. Under ...

style of service. Each spot beam provides a certain amount of usable bandwidth. The bandwidth which is not in use by Streaming contexts is used for Background contexts. This means that the actual amount of bandwidth received with a background context will vary over time. The theoretical maximum bandwidth available is ~400 kbit/s. As a result, background contexts are billed based on volume instead of time usage.

Data services

Streaming

Background

See also