Tags: Satellite Dish, Ka-Band, Satellite Broadband
Publication: BusinessWeek.com
Publication Date: 10/18/2012

The mTenna owes its small size and portability to metamaterials, substances that can enhance and manipulate a satellite signal while occupying virtually no space. Image credit: Kymeta

Startup company Kymeta is working to break the satellite status quo. The venture is developing the mTenna, a new Ka-Band hotspot antenna that might replace the bulky, but familiar, satellite dish.

The mTenna prototype is a flat-panel about the size of a laptop and promises to maintain a stable broadband link up to four times faster than a traditional antenna either on a moving vehicle or on a fixed place. Its innovation lies in a metamerial surface that has the capability of repositioning a transmitter electronically rather than mechanically.

Its makers hope to release mTenna prototype to the market by 2015 and promote it to the disaster-relief industry and to news outlets that report from war zones.

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