Stratos Global Corp., a provider of Inmarsat mobile satellite services, 7 began taking orders from distribution partners and customers Nov. 7 for Inmarsat’s Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) service, Stratos announced.

Stratos already has received orders from distribution partners for more than 7,500 BGAN subscriber identity module cards that will be packaged with BGAN terminals and sold to customers once service launches. The service will be commercially available in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia within the next several weeks and in North and South America in early 2006.

BGAN will provide high-speed Internet and intranet content and solutions, video-on-demand, videoconferencing, fax, e-mail, phone and local area network access around the globe.

Separately, Sea Launch Co. delivered the second satellite designed to provide the service, Inmarsat-4 F2, to geosynchronous transfer orbit Nov. 8. The Zenit-3SL rocket lifted off from the platform at Sea Launch’s equatorial launch site Nov. 8 at 9:07 a.m. EST. A ground station at Lake Cowichan, British Columbia, acquired the first signal from the satellite less than 25 minutes after the spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle.

The EADS Astrium-built Inmarsat-4 F2 carries a single global beam that covers up to a third of the Earth’s surface, 19 wide spot beams and 228 narrow spot beams. Inmarsat’s BGAN constellation will consist of three satellites. Inmarsat-4 F1 was launched in March.