11/20/2001

By DOUG BEDELL / The Dallas Morning News

The same videophones that beam live television images from the war in Afghanistan are poised to fill a vital communications niche in the homeland.

With drastic drops in equipment pricing, satellite telephone systems are being readied for deployment inside ambulances, at remote domestic petroleum and utility installations, and across an array of other businesses and services.

As a business advantage, satellite video technology can provide a full-time, electronic peephole in areas where more traditional communication methods are limited.

With satellite, the sky's no limit, said David Nack, vice president of AOS Inc., a Dallas company that specializes in matching customers with satellite video, audio and data transmission systems. "You're going to start seeing this technology in any industry that's working in the sticks, basically – anywhere you don't have cellular or traditional telephone coverage," Mr. Nack said.

He and other vendors base their optimism on the expanding use of four Inmarsat satellites sent aloft in 1979 to provide emergency links for distressed maritime operations. The "birds" sent aloft by Inmarsat – the International Maritime Satellite Organization – occupy stationary positions 22,000 miles above the Earth's equator, blanketing the world with coverage.

Inmarsat systems are bound to succeed where other satellite telephone systems have been colossal failures because of shortsighted marketing, said Paul Dykewicz, an industry analyst and editor of Satellite News .

Finding customers in unlikely places has become a hallmark for the Inmarsat-based system, said Jonathan Higgins, a UK-based satellite communications consultant and the author of Satellite News Gathering .

Exposure from TV war coverage has "spawned a whole lot of applications we never thought of," Mr. Higgins said. "We've even got storm chasers now calling in orders. They're crazy. They want to use them to broadcast live as these horrible things are coming right at them."

CNN and MSNBC correspondents are using four Inmarsat satellites to beam their video streams across the globe. In recent years, London-based Inmarsat began taking on commercial customers, providing phone, fax and data communications to a growing list of industries.

Since the first versions of highly portable Inmarsat videophones hit the market last year, journalists and broadcasters have come to rely on Inmarsat links for transmitting news and pictures from faraway places that lack access to cellular networks.

Disaster relief workers find them invaluable for sending dispatches from regions where other telecommunications options have been crippled by natural disasters or other catastrophes.

And, gradually, mining companies and petroleum producers have found Inmarsat transmissions cost-efficient and smart alternatives to flying engineers into isolated locations to oversee minor fixes and maintenance. A repairman can do the work with remote instructions.

The simple dial-up operation combined with newly compact and rugged terminals serves as a portable office for Internet access and reliable links to home-base data centers.

Broader use of Inmarsat 64 kilobit-per-second video feeds were, at first, hampered by both technological and legal restrictions. The first portable Inmarsat phones cost well over $50,000 and were crammed into two suitcases weighing more than 100 pounds.

Slow modem uplinks and high connection costs made the devices unappealing to all but the largest governmental and private operations. Until recently, their use was restricted on land.

Incredible change

A base station now weighs 10 pounds or less and can be set up in minutes. The latest models are no bigger than notebook computers. Their flat, fold-out, 30-inch antenna panels can be erected in seconds.

Units can be plugged into standard video cameras to instantly provide two-way video conferencing – much the same way Internet-connected computers communicate using software such as NetMeeting.

Costs for a 64 kbps uplink – the lowest available transmission speed providing a basic video feed – remain pricey at about $7 per minute. But that cost pales in comparison to the competitive advantages offered by these units for news organizations and some other businesses.

In April, when a Navy spy plane was forced to land in China, CNN used an Inmarsat videophone to send live images of the crew boarding a chartered jet for their return to the United States. CNN was the only news organization able to transmit even a grainy, jerky feed of the event to the rest of the world.

Once the Chinese realized what CNN's crews were up to, the equipment was confiscated. But its mark on international, remote television transmissions was indelible.

More innovations to improve performance were already in the works when terrorists struck the United States on Sept. 11.

Systems integrators – such as AOS – began assembling videophone packages that could bind several 64 kbps transmissions into a single, faster two-way stream.

And, as equipment prices began tumbling to $7,500 and below, businesses with far-flung outposts began buying them up as fast as manufacturers could get them out the door. Orders are currently backlogged.

Nic Robertson, CNN senior correspondent in Afghanistan, said that the Inmarsat transmissions are suddenly vital components of war coverage. "Videophones put you in the heart of a story and allow you to broadcast live within minutes, following the changes in a story and without having to go back to base," Mr. Robertson said. The newly small size of the systems also helped avoid detection by the Taliban.

Ready for expansion

As cheaper, quicker equipment was hitting the world market, restrictions for its use inside the country were being lifted.

AOS and other outfitters began taking orders from companies such as Williams Energy of Tulsa, which began offering live webcasts of petroleum industry news. AOS Inmarsat terminals were shipped to the company's Houston bureau to stream video right to the website (www.williamsenergy.com/flashhome.asp).

With the equipment, a news anchor sitting in a Houston office reads breaking petroleum news for corporate customers interested in up-to-the-minute narratives of industry gyrations.

"It's hard to imagine what all the applications are now," Mr. Higgins said. "It was only first used for real in March 2000. There are some very smart minds looking at this technology. It's been quite amazing to watch what's happening with it."

Mr. Nack said orders have been arriving for all sorts of applications.

About half of AOS' business now consists of providing services and equipment to governmental agencies, he said. Mr. Nack would not discuss his company's domestic government clients.

But, he said, those customers are joining oil and gas clients in using encrypted data transmissions to protect content of all sorts of photos, video and files being beamed on the Inmarsat systems from remote outposts.

Variety of uses

Telemedicine may see even wider adoption in areas such as West Texas, where cellular service is scarce or nonexistent. Ambulance companies and hospitals are also experimenting with using satellite video and data transmissions from emergency medical service vehicles carrying patients toward treatment centers.

"You could have the video of the patient coming up back at the emergency room along with telemetry data – pulse rate, all those sorts of measurements – so that when the patient hits the emergency room, you've already got a preliminary analysis from waiting physicians," Mr. Nack said.

Oilfield workers can use Inmarsat hookups to transmit geophysical data from remote drilling locations or to troubleshoot equipment problems, experts said. Problems with equipment on offshore oil rigs can often be diagnosed using Inmarsat transmissions piped back to company home offices. That can save firms the time and expense of transporting engineers to remote locations.

Future applications for the satellite videophones will include security surveillance of domestic water supplies, analysts said. The system can easily be set up with a camera and motion-sensing alarm. When an intrusion is detected, an Inmarsat link to the camera would be instantly activated.

The next generation of broadband satellite telephony promises to be even less expensive, Mr. Nack said. A complete, compact broadband videophone will sell for $2,000 to $3,000, according to estimates. Signs abound that videophone retailers are about to experience tremendous growth.

The Davenport Road headquarters of AOS, for example, is currently being expanded at a time when other businesses are contracting. With the newly opened domestic market and supercharged technical innovations on the horizon, satellite video and data applications seem destined for new heights.

"This is huge for us," said Mr. Nack. "We're very, very excited."