Inmarsat 5 F1 and Inmarsat 5 F2 in a Boeing facility. Photo: Inmarsat

[Via Satellite 11-07-2014] Inmarsat has completed construction of the final four Satellite Access Stations (SAS) for its Global Xpress (GX) fleet. This represents a significant milestone in the rollout of GX, Inmarsat’s global high-speed broadband Ka-band network, which is scheduled for global commercial service introduction early in the second half of 2015.

The new GX stations are located in Lino Lakes, Minn.; Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada; with two sites near Auckland, New Zealand. Two further stations — in Fucino, Italy and Nemea, Greece — are already operational. All six GX SAS will act as gateways between the broadband traffic routed via the three Inmarsat 5 (I-5) satellites and terrestrial fixed networks. Each SAS delivers full ground segment redundancy for GX services, providing high quality resiliency, reliability and availability, for example at times of adverse weather, and offering a powerful differentiator to traditional regional Ku-band networks.

GX will deliver high-throughput broadband connectivity on land, at sea and in the air; provided by a single operator with seamless access anywhere in the world. It will also offer a worldwide commercial satellite network that is interoperable with government military satellite communications (milsatcom) Ka-band systems.