Inmarsat, the International Maritime Satellite system, is an international
co-operative set up in 1979 to provide mobile satellite communications
world-wide for the maritime community.
The Inmarsat satellites support a wide range of services that make it
possible to stay in touch in the following ways at sea: by direct-dial
telephone, telex, facsimile, electronic mail and data connections.
Virtual Antarctica will make use of three Inmarsat systems to send back data
from Antarctica.
Inmarsat-B
Inmarsat-B provides a similar range of
services to Inmarsat-A but, because it is based on modern digital
telecommunications technologies, Inmarsat-B terminals are smaller, lighter
and cheaper to buy and incur lower user charges.
Inmarsat-M
The new digital service is the Inmarsat-M telephone
system. Portable Inmarsat-M terminals are the size of a
briefcase and can provide direct-dial telephone, fax or 2.4kbit/s data
connections. Maritime versions are fitted with tracking antennas with
domes about one eighth the volume of their bigger, more capable
Inmarsat-A/B brothers. Terminal and user charges are also considerably less
than those for the larger systems.
Inmarsat-C
The Inmarsat-C system supports the smallest two-way
communications terminals of all. Lightweight (only a few
kilos), compact and with omni-directional antenna systems, the terminals
come in fixed, mobile, transportable, maritime and aeronautical versions.
Inmarsat-C supports two-way, store-and-forward message, text or data
reporting communications at a data rate of 600 bits per second.
For more information on the Inmarsat system, check out the relevant
pages on the Web.
