Saturday, May 10, 2014

Inmarsat Chief Exec Blasts Iridium Plans in Maritime Safety, Air Navigation | SpaceNews.com

Inmarsat Chief Exec Blasts Iridium Plans in Maritime Safety, Air Navigation | SpaceNews.com

Rupert Pearce said Iridium’s current network is incapable of providing the minimum reliability required by the International Maritime Organization, and that Iridium has yet to demonstrate it can fully finance and deploy its second-generation constellation.
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“While we obviously welcome competition and innovation around GMDSS and safety services generally, the most important thing is that the standards of quality for safety services are maintained, if not enhanced,” Pearce said.

“Fundamental to that is 99.99 percent availability on your network. We do not believe that Iridium even comes close to that level of performance. As such, it is utterly inappropriate that they should even apply, let alone be granted accreditation.

“Lives will be lost if people install that equipment and it’s not available when they need it. In the context of a safety service, as opposed to a commercial service, the consequences are ghastly to think about.

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