Artist’s rendition of the first Global Xpress satellite, Inmarsat 15. Photo: Inmarsat

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has awarded Comsat a contract to support communication activities on the African continent with Inmarsat’s Global Xpress Satcom as a Service capability. Delivering end-to-end managed high-throughput service everywhere, Global Xpress Satcom as a Service provides 24/7/365 management, monitoring and support globally, according to Comsat.

Satcom as a Service allows users to leverage Comsatcom for core functions, while integrating with milsatcom for redundancy, diversity, protection, scalability and global portability. Government users travel from one location to another, and simply “plug in” to get what they need, when they need it. With service level agreements and committed information rates, users get what they ask for via terminals.

As an Inmarsat value added reseller for Global Xpress, Comsat has built out a secure terrestrial network that interconnects Inmarsat’s infrastructure to Comsat’s global core Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network. Comsat’s network supports Non-classified Internet Protocol Router/Secret Internet Protocol Router (NIPR/SIPR) services over the Inmarsat Global Xpress network and enables the DOD to deploy globally.

The three Global Xpress satellites currently in orbit have been online providing worldwide connectivity since December 2015 to support government global missions. Actively supporting U.S. government customers worldwide, Global Xpress complements U.S. government military satellite communications and delivers a commercial Ka-band network that meets mobile, on-demand communication needs.