Globalstar has made its share of headlines throughout the past year, though not always for reasons the company would prefer.
In December, the satellite operator awarded a contract to Thales Alenia Space for 48 second-generation satellites. The first of these spacecraft are scheduled to be in orbit in summer 2009, but some industry observers, distributors and customers are wondering if the company will be around when the new satellites reach orbit.
In February, Globalstar said customers may lose service because many of the company’s first-generation satellites are suffering from degraded performance in their S-band antennas. Eight spare satellites, four of which already are in orbit, will replace the worst performing spacecraft, and Globalstar has developed several methods it hopes will keeps customers happy until the next-generation satellites are fully operational.
“We have found remedies in handsets, gateways and software that will facilitate this extension as well as facilitate the subscriber experience,” Anthony Navarra, Globalstar’s president of global operations. “We have reported a half-dozen things that would allow callers to extend call time and quality. They are not as good as 48 satellites in a constellation, but they are still good.”
Navarra discussed these efforts as well as the company’s future with Via Satellite Editor Jason Bates.
Via Satellite: What are some of the remedies you are offering customers?
Navarra: When a subscriber gets on board they know they don’t have full ubiquitous service. There will be gaps, but we have created Web-based tools that allow subscribers to plug in either their city or their longitude and latitude. With that data, you can plan a couple days out the time you need to make your calls. We can give them the best 30-minute period, the best one-and-a-half hour period and when the gaps might be. These are unique for every subscriber depending on where they are on the surface of the Earth.
Via Satellite: What are you doing with your hardware?
Navarra: We have programmed the ground stations so they can pick up the satellites a little higher in elevation. They usually pick up the satellite as low as 5 to 7 degrees above the horizon. Now we have programmed them to pick up a little later in orbit — around 10 degrees. Now the quality of signal is better and they can hold a specific user call for a longer period.
On the handset side we have improved the performance for the fixed antennas, and on the handset itself we have altered the way the gateway and the handset are talking to each other to much like a cellular tower does.
The third improvement, and most important for the data side, is that we have developed a store-and-forward capability. This allows modems operating on our Qualcomm product family and some [value-added resellers] to collect data and store it. Then when the satellite is in range it dumps the data.
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