Iridium initiates alliance to foster global satellite location services

Stuart Corner
Friday, 18 September 2009 06:02

IT Industry - Strategy

Iridium Satellite LLC - operator of a constellation of low earth orbit communications satellites - has formed the ProTECTS (Promotion of Two-way Emergency Communication and Tracking Systems) Alliance "to foster the rapid and orderly adoption of portable, two-way satellite-based location, tracking and messaging technologies."

Iridium says membership is open to mobile satellite service (MSS) providers, software developers, manufacturers, system integrators, resellers, distributors, industry experts, search and rescue authorities, first responders, trade associations, regulatory bodies and user groups.

Iridium is also launching a strategic initiative to focus its internal engineering, R&D, product certification, activations, marketing and channel sales support resources "to assist service partners in bringing these personal safety products and services to market."

The alliance aims to provide a forum for addressing issues affecting the suppliers and users of these safety devices. It also will "seek to foster the development and deployment of bi-directional satellite data solutions meeting the requirements of the growing population of government and business organisations using portable tracking devices, as well as the public-safety community."
 
"The ProTECTS Alliance will advocate for industry standards based on two-way satellite data links," said Patrick Shay, vice president and general manager of Iridium's data division. "Soldiers in the field, disaster relief workers, pipeline inspectors in remote oil fields, helicopter pilots fighting forest fires, scientific expeditions in the Antarctic and sailors on the high seas are all relying on satellite location technology as a critical safety lifeline, and the interactive bi-directional data link helps ensure their distress messages are heard and that help reaches them."

He added: "Eleven Iridium service providers in 30 countries offer two-way short-burst data (SBD) solutions for personal locating, tracking and messaging through Iridium satellites. SBD represents a very efficient use of our satellite capacity for tracking and monitoring everything from vehicles to construction machines to individuals in remote areas."

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