BGAN HDR services now live

Following the BGAN HDR update last month, Inmarsat announced that asymmetric and codec testing has successfully concluded, marking the global availability of BGAN HDR’s full suite of services.
 
Asymmetric services
 
Designed to respond to market demands to provide more bandwidth in the return direction, the BGAN HDR full asymmetric channel offers an average streaming rate of between 600-700kbps – with 64kbps in the forward direction.
 
Its half-channel asymmetric option comes at the same price-point as the existing 256kbps BGAN streaming service, but offers average throughput between 300 – 350kbps, allowing those 256kbps customers to benefit from the resulting higher picture quality for the same price.
 
BGAN HDR – a new era of streaming live video
 
Unlike other on-demand and guaranteed streaming rates in the BGAN portfolio, BGAN HDR offers a range of speeds within each of its channels – enabling users to take full advantage of available bandwidth at their specific location.
 
Because of this, there is an additional terminal feature that informs end-users of throughput once the session is up and running. This will enable them set their codec to this ‘optimum’ speed, rather than waste bandwidth where previously they had to set their codec to a minimum guaranteed speed.
 
BGAN HDR also accesses all the other services that BGAN offers, such as Standard IP, voice and text messaging. For streaming services, the current firmware release requires the header compression option to be turned off. This means the traffic files will be larger, but there will be no impact on quality.
 
BGAN HDR – a new era
 
There is no doubt we have now delivered a new and compelling proposition which fits market requirements, both on price and performance. BGAN HDR’s suite of services offers unprecedented, superior throughput speeds in the most portable form-factor, as well as value for money.
 
This new service marks a new era of BGAN connectivity and reflects Inmarsat’s ongoing commitment to support those high-value customers who depend on a highly portable satellite solution for streaming high-quality live video, wherever they are.