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U.S. Navy military sealift command awards Inmarsat Government 10-year, $578 million next generation wideband follow-on contract

17 Aug 2022

Inmarsat Government announced that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has awarded Inmarsat Government the U.S. Navy Military Sealift Command (MSC) Next Generation Wideband (NGW) Follow-On (FO) Contract for worldwide end-to-end commercial satellite communications services. An Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, the ceiling value of the award is $578M over a 10-year period. Under the contract, Inmarsat Government will maintain and operate commercial communications infrastructure, which includes satellite systems, teleport services and terrestrial services.

For the past decade, Inmarsat Government has demonstrated its ability to deliver highly robust, exceptionally reliable, global satellite communications (SATCOM) solutions to MSC. Under this newly awarded FO contract, the company will also upgrade the primary afloat network from Ku to the Global Xpress (GX) Ka-band system, paired with Inmarsat ELERA’s enhanced L-band Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (LAISR) service to provide a uniquely reliable, global back-up network. This combination of networks ensures that MSC has secure global communications, delivering a high-throughput, low size and weight solution.

Inmarsat Government has proven success and capability in providing highly reliable managed maritime services by combining the high data rates of Inmarsat’s GX Ka-band network with the reliability of the company’s ELERA L-band network. The seamless combination of networks offer unrivaled speed, continuous connectivity and guaranteed performance for true global mobility. Solution benefits include:

Continuous connectivity – A worldwide integrated solution delivering high-throughput with Radio Frequency (RF) band and path diversity to ships at sea. Inmarsat GX and ELERA networks deliver capability designed for mobility: all the network aspects have been designed as a single solution, so customers experience a reliable, always-on continuous service.

Guaranteed performance – Guaranteed network availability and committed data rates so the customer will know that they will get exactly what they pay for, and bandwidth planning can be done precisely as the customer can base their estimate on the actual data need--all backed by a robust Service Level Agreement (SLA).

A fully-managed service – A reliable end-to-end solution with minimal management required from customers and backed by 24/7 U.S.-based Network Operations Center (NOC) support.

Service flexibility – Requests for increase and decreases in data rates are fulfilled within moments of request rather than the weeks required for executing satellite bandwidth portability or additional space segment to rebuild networks.

Susan Miller, CEO and President, Inmarsat Government, said: “Inmarsat Government is very proud to have delivered robust, highly available, global satellite communications solutions to MSC over the last decade. We look forward to providing that same excellent service and a seamless transition as we deliver highly reliable commercial satellite communications solutions worldwide. Our team is committed to providing MSC with significant enhancements in SATCOM managed services including the coverage, reliability, resiliency and throughput, all managed end-to-end.”