Inmarsat : IsatPhone portfolio now available in Colombia

13 August 2014: Inmarsat's IsatPhone handheld satellite phone portfolio has been approved for operation in Colombia.

IsatPhone 2 and IsatPhone Pro will be distributed by Globalsat Colombia, the local operating member of the Latin American Globalsat Group, which has been providing mobile satellite services in Latin America since 1999.

Globalsat Group already supplies the handsets to thousands of regional customers, including emergency first responders, humanitarian aid organisations and journalists reporting from the field.

Other end-users include the mining, oil and maritime industries as well as those whose activities take them to remote areas on land or at sea where terrestrial communications are either unreliable or non-existent.

"We're excited to expand our service offerings in the region," said Robert Darias, Director of Sales in Latin America for Inmarsat's Enterprise business unit. "Colombia's GDP is among the top five in Latin America and the Caribbean, and we see a tremendous potential for growth in the satellite communications space."

Alberto Palacios, CEO of Globalsat, said: "Colombia provides strong market opportunities for Inmarsat services.

"The country already leads, or has the potential to lead, South America in many of the economic activities - mining, oil and gas production and hydroelectric generation, for example - that take place in remote areas where reliable voice and data connections are required but difficult or impossible to find."

IsatPhone Pro and IsatPhone 2 are already sold in 17 countries in the region and operate over Inmarsat's award-winning global I-4 satellite network.

The handsets come with voicemail, text and email messaging, as well as GPS location data and after a single charge provide up to eight hours of reliable, high-quality calls and 100 hours on standby.

Engineered to operate at temperatures as low as -20°C and as high as +55°C, the phones are robust enough to withstand the most extreme weather conditions, such as hurricanes and sandstorms.

The new generation IsatPhone 2 builds on the technology of IsatPhone Pro by expanding standby battery life to up to 160 hours and providing an assistance button.

If the button is pressed in an emergency, a text message is sent to pre-programmed numbers or email addresses as well as data about the user's location which is shown on an interactive map.

Both features offer peace of mind to those workers in volatile locations, providing the reassurance that the alarm can be raised at any time and that their location can be easily identified.

Personnel from Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF), an Inmarsat partner, and the Red Cross rely on IsatPhone Pro to coordinate relief operations when terrestrial communications fail following a disaster.

Most recently, first responders equipped with Inmarsat BGAN terminals and IsatPhone Pro, provided by Globalsat Group, worked with authorities to provide critical technical support to aid relief operations following the 8.2 earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile earlier this year.