Inmarsat Government, a leading provider of secure, global, mission-critical telecommunications to the U.S. public sector, announced that its Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) Software Defined Radio (SDR) waveform has received Software Communications Architecture (SCA) compliance certification from the Joint Tactical Radio System Test and Evaluation Laboratory (JTRS JTEL).

The SCA is an open-architecture specification that sets out how software applications (waveforms) and hardware platforms should interact. The objective of the SCA is to minimize the amount of effort required for integrating waveforms with different radio platforms.

Inmarsat, in cooperation with GateHouse Satellite Communication, has developed a BGAN SDR waveform for the global government market to support the full suite of BGAN bearers, such as packet switched data, circuit switched data and Integrated Services for Digital Network (ISDN).

"The SCA certification enables the addition of BGAN services to existing JTRS-compliant and other SDR platforms, extending the U.S. warfighter's ability to collaborate and share information over secure radio communications," said Susan Miller, president and CEO of Inmarsat Government. "Presently, we are working with defense system integrators to embed the BGAN SDR waveform into those radios, adding the rich, beyond-line-of-sight set of capabilities of BGAN to those platforms."

Militaries are increasingly reliant on SDR platforms for radio communications, for their ability to support multiple waveforms while maintaining a compact form factor, lower weight and lower power consumption than conventional dedicated systems. The majority of the waveforms currently available on SDR platforms are limited to line-of-sight applications and BGAN SDR adds Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) broadband satcom capability to that, significantly improving the warfighter's ability to communicate in difficult operational conditions on the move or on the pause.

"We are very excited that JTEL has certified our implementation of the BGAN waveform to be SCA 2.2.2 compliant; an important step for us in making BGAN as easily accessible as possible for customers with an SCA compliant SDR platform," said Claus Vesterholt, Program Manager, GateHouse Satellite Communication.

The BGAN SDR waveform is ready for customers wanting to enable BGAN on their SCA-compliant radio hardware, achieving global SDR-based satellite communication. The BGAN SDR waveform can be efficiently integrated, while maintaining BGAN's core characteristics of reliability, security, scalability and global coverage and providing access to premier satellite communication services delivered by Inmarsat via its global I4 satellite constellation.

About Inmarsat Government

Inmarsat Government provides secure, reliable and affordable mission-critical telecommunications to U.S. military, intelligence and civilian organizations. Equipped with the industry's leading terrestrial and satellite infrastructure and partners, it delivers custom, end-to-end managed network solutions that can sustain communications anytime, anywhere. Inmarsat Government is a cleared organization operating under a Proxy Agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inmarsat plc. Inmarsat Government is responsible for Inmarsat's retail U.S. government business and is headquartered in Herndon, VA, with network assets and operations around the globe. For more information, please visit www.inmarsatgov.com.

About GateHouse

GateHouse specializes in technical software development and system integration for advanced satellite communications and tracking systems. GateHouse is the leading independent provider of complete embedded software for Inmarsat BGAN terminals, providing software to the majority of BGAN terminal manufacturers, and a Software Defined Radio competence centre providing a BGAN waveform. The generic software tracking platform, ghTrack®, supports daily the tracking of more than 150.000 unique units worldwide and is a solid foundation for any tracking, monitoring and control solution of the future. Furthermore, GateHouse offers consultancy services in the defence market. More info at www.gatehouse.dk.

Inmarsat Government
Alena Koci
Vice President, Marketing
+1 703-621-0271
alena.koci@inmarsatgov.com
or
GateHouse
Mette D. Lilkær
Marketing Manager
+45 7020 1909
mdl@gatehouse.dk