Wessex Water, a British utility company equips its rapid deployment emergency response teams with BGAN satellite by Inmarsat. The company currently provides water and sewage services to nearly 1.3m people across the south-west of England. Company Managers decided to upgrade their communications systems to support a rapid response in remote areas where cell phone service is spotty, non-existent or unreliable.
Inmarsat partner Hughes, which supports a solution offering automatic rollover from 3G to satellite utilizing the very portable, very cost effective, light weight and ruggedized 9450 Vehicular BGAN satellite terminal. The 9450 allows utility company crews to stream live video from the scene of incidents, keeping communication channels open when cellular coverage is not available and synchronizing communications between mobile units and the command center.
“We’re proud to have been chosen by Wessex Water for this critically important service,” said Chris O’Dell, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Hughes Europe. “Wessex Water’s engineers previously faced an uncertain communications environment when responding to a major incident.”