Navarino, the maritime industry’s leading communications and technology company, is proud to announce that it has reached an agreement with Iridium to become an Iridium Certus service provider. With higher speeds, state-of-the-art small form factor terminals and competitive pricing options, Iridium Certus will offer a complete communications platform to the maritime sector and can serve either as a primary service or as a VSAT companion solution.
Navarino’s Head of Product Management, Nick Papanikolaou said ‘The new Iridium Certus platform will bring a robust, truly global service to the L-band spectrum, with significantly increased bandwidth compared to the previous generation of Iridium satellites. This new Iridium service fits perfectly into Navarino’s upcoming plans for a simplified connectivity solution based primarily on Ku band, using Iridium Certus as the companion platform. In addition, Certus will be available from us as a stand-alone service for those users whose needs it fits.’
‘Every service provider is crucial to the success of Iridium Certus,’ said Wouter Deknopper, vice president and general manager, Maritime Line of Business at Iridium. ‘For instance, as one of the largest connectivity and technology solutions providers in the maritime industry, Navarino brings its expertise and global reach to the Iridium Certus program. This includes a focus on offering both standardized services and comprehensive and customized maritime connectivity solutions.’
Commercial service availability for Iridium Certus is planned for 2018. Iridium Certus will be introduced to the market in a series of speed classes. Initial service offering speeds will debut at 352 Kbps and will later be upgradable to 704 Kbps with a firmware upgrade. The service will also support safety services and a range of streaming options. Enabled by Iridium NEXT, the Company’s next-generation, $3 billion satellite constellation, Iridium Certus will provide higher quality voice capabilities, alongside enterprise-grade broadband functionality for the entire planet, whether on land, in the air or at sea. To date, there have been seven successful Iridium® NEXT launches, deploying 65 new satellites. One launch remains before completion of the company’s historic constellation refresh.