Thursday, March 6, 2008

National Public Radio puts the Access Portable to the test

After some testing with the Comrex Access Portable over Galaxy 1's Satellite Phone Data terminals, NPR decides its time to put the Access into action...

Charlie Mayer from NPR News writes, "The Comrex ACCESS debuted tonight on NPR at 8:07pmET from San Antonio, Texas.NPR White House Correspondent Don Gonyea and producer Thomas Pierce used the ACCESS to talk live into All Things Considered during NPR's coverage of the March 4 primaries.

The ACCESS proved its utility in a situation where there was no time to order an ISDN line and-remarkably-no wireless internet provided for the press. Early in the evening there wasn't power at the site, so the battery was critical. Our EvDO connection on Verizon Rev A was less than robust, but it worked. We suffered a delay of up to 1.8 seconds during our first live shot. That came down to about 0.3 seconds during our second hit. I have attached an mp3 file of the ACCESS debut on NPR.



Thank you, Tom and Gino, for setting us up with this gear. We look forward to using it more as the presidential campaign grinds toward November."Charlie MayerDirector of OperationsNPR News

Thuraya IP Satellite Phone and Data Services successfully delivers Streaming Audio

Galaxy 1 Communications along with Vizada, was invited to the Thuraya Land Earth Station to perform Pre-Alpha testing on the newest IP Satellite Data product due to be launched by Thuraya, Thuraya IP. Just outside of Dubai in Sharja, using the latest Hughes Thuraya IP Satellite terminal, we successfully connected to the Comrex lab and fed broadcast quality audio over 32kbps, 64kbps streaming channels, as well as using the Standard Background IP data service. We did notice some packet loss however, the fact that the network had just been switched on live not more that 48 hours earlier with no real testing or adjustments prior, this was a great success.