Americom Government Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of SES Americom, and Wheat International, a provider of long-range wireless services, set a record for mobile broadband Internet services during a public test of their network, the companies announced Aug. 9.

The purpose of the test was to determine the maximum daily throughput of Wheat’s patent pending WiFi system, HIRA, which is designed to be connected to a Telesea model 2 Ku- band satellite antenna using Americom’s AMC-6 TDMA Shared Platform Satellite from a ship. About 85 gigabytes of data were transferred wirelessly during the 13 day-testing period in the Norfolk, Va., area — an average of 6.5 gigabytes of data per day via shipboard Internet services.

The network is designed to provide global maritime broadband Internet services with long-range WiFi access up to 30 miles, giving multiple ships the capability to share broadband access.