After four years in Iraq providing both the U.S. government and the provisional Iraqi government with satellite telecommunications systems, Proactive Communication Inc. (PCI) is ready to expand its reach in the United States, according to the company’s CEO.

In 2003, PCI received a contract to support Operation Iraqi Freedom by providing Internet Protocol (IP) support to the U.S. government. By June 2004, PCI had eight people in Iraq developing a satellite communications package to support a combat division, CEO Marc LeGare said. In November, the company won a contract to support a large-scale satellite telecom network in support of the U.S. government on behalf of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior.

PCI’s network since has spread from Dahuk, in northern Iraq past Baghdad to Basrah, in southern Iraq.  "This particular network provides secure and non-secure voice and data systems to the ministry of the interior,”LeGare said. "It’s now the largest fully mesh secure voice network in the world" over satellite and incorporates more than 200 nodes.

One of the elements LeGare factors in their success in Iraq is partnerships with local businesses. In 2005, some of those partnerships paid off when PCI was used to support the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for Hurricane Katrina.  "We received a phone call on Friday, and about five days later we deployed a four-man team and built about 38 telecommunications sites to support FEMA damage assessment,”he said. 

LeGare wants to break into the U.S. disaster relief and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security but said he is not interested in breaking into the residential broadband market. He does not believe his company can compete with wired environments, but they are interested in the communications-on-the-move market. PCI has done test integration and demonstration of a vehicle with an antenna that would allow voice, video and data to be received while on the move.

"My niche is where there is no infrastructure," he said. "Where there is a need for rapid communications of various elements with the requirement to reach back to the secure or the safe area where there is cabled communication.”