Inmarsat unveils IoT satellite communications network

“Elera is perfectly suited to the needs of the connected IoT world,” said Inmarsat chief executive Rajeev Suri.

“Global reach, extraordinary resilience, faster speeds, smaller and lower cost terminals are all part of ensuring that we remain ahead of others in meeting the needs of our customers.”

Inmarsat also has customers outside of maritime, including mobile satellite users in aviation and government, and Elera could be used in new IoT arenas including autonomous transport and unmanned aerial vehicles and surface vessels.

Inmarsat Elera incorporates innovations ranging from higher speeds to smaller, low-cost terminals and will be a key component of Inmarsat’s Orchestra network, which the UK-based satellite owner announced at the beginning of August 2021.

The new network will combine geostationary satellites, those in low Earth orbit (LEO) and a new 5G cellular network for maritime communications.

“I expect that Inmarsat will grow strongly in 2021 compared to the previous year, and that growth will span most of our business units. We have sharpened our strategy to focus on driving growth, accelerating decision making, launching new innovations and creating a more commercially focused, customer-centric culture,” Mr Suri said.

When Inmarsat commissions its two I-6 satellites in 2022, it expects to deliver L-band speeds up to 1.7Mbps, made possible when Inmarsat introduces new spectrum management capabilities, known as carrier aggregation, into the Elera network and the I-6 satellites.

The expected speed increases far outstrip the capabilities of any other worldwide L-band network, including Inmarsat’s existing FleetBroadband, and would be akin to the speeds available through some current low-level VSAT services.

L-band capacity on each I-6 satellite will be substantially greater than Inmarsat’s fourth-generation spacecraft.

Among other enhancements, the satellites have unlimited beam routeing flexibility and will deliver 50% more capacity per beam, enabling much more data to be carried across the same geographical area.

Inmarsat intends to run live customer trials of Elera in commercial aviation during 2022. After the trials, Inmarsat plans to roll out the technology across a range of sector specific applications over the coming few years.

Elera comes as shipowners, operators and managers are embracing IoT and digitalisation for analytics and fleet optimisation, creating ’smart’ ships, voyage optimisation, predictive maintenance, fuel consumption and emissions reductions as well as a greater degree of operational transparency.

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