Thuraya and ViaSat form M2M partnership

May 19, 2014

Thuraya and ViaSat Inc. have signed a partnership agreement to develop and launch a dedicated Machine-to-Machine (M2M) platform combined with M2M specific products and commercial packages.

Together, the companies will leverage their respective strengths to create a highly competitive offer for the satellite M2M market. The Thuraya/ViaSat M2M solution will be a highly secure, end-to-end managed service boasting a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over the lifetime of an M2M project. The M2M service is ideal for end-users across the energy, utilities, logistics and enterprise sectors, among others. M2M will be a key growth engine for satellite services in the next few years.

Thuraya and ViaSat have a vision for a faster and more secure offering to address the higher-end requirements of the energy, enterprise and military sectors.

Thuraya is a leader in the MSS sector serving the land mobile and maritime markets
with innovative, high-quality and cost-effective mobile satellite solutions across its
network which covers Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia.

ViaSat technology uses satellite bandwidth more efficiently to lower the cost of
ownership and enable advanced features for M2M applications, including multicast
and improved network security. Through extensive experience in serving U.S.
government customers with highly secure and rugged satellite-based global services,
the company has created a new waveform optimized for M2M.

Randy Roberts, Vice President of Innovation at Thuraya, says, “Thuraya recognizes that one of the key drivers of the Internet of Things (IoT) is the growing adoption of M2M technology across industries. The partnership with ViaSat will enable us to broaden our M2M product portfolio, for both fixed and mobile applications, to better serve our enterprise users’ need for asset tracking and remote monitoring services. The strategic partnership with ViaSat will address this through a proven, highly secure, cost-effective and reliable M2M platform to manage these processes effectively.”

Phil Berry, Vice President, ViaSat MSS said, “Thuraya’s dependable satellite network
infrastructure is the ideal platform for the Thuraya ViaSat M2M network. That
dependability is crucial when access to connectivity has to be quickly established,
even in remote locations, to facilitate tracking, reporting, and monitoring.”

The Thuraya ViaSat M2M service is planned for launch in early 2015. In the meantime, the focus is on recruiting M2M application developers and further augmenting distribution capabilities.