Jan/Feb 2006

It could be easier in future to make mobile phone calls from aircraft and ships and in extremely remote places, using ordinary third-generation mobile phone handsets.

TriaGnoSys, a German company that is already involved in a real-time container tracking initiative, has joined forces with 3Way Networks, a UMTS (3G) equipment specialist based in Cambridge, to develop what they claim to be the first integrated 3G mobile network using satellite communications.

The system uses a small, light "picocell" device - a hub with a range of 100 metres Ðwhich can process up to a hundred 3G mobile phone calls at once, and incorporates a transceiver to channel calls to and from communications satellites. The satellites in turn deliver them to and from public mobile phone networks anywhere in the world.

The device weighs only a few hundred grams, so is highly portable, and is said to cost no more than current satellite phone equipment; but it can handle a hundred times as many units, implying a much lower cost per call.

 

The companies say their initial targets are business jets, passenger ships and military users.