Stratos is one of the world's largest distributors of Inmarsat's BGAN (Broadband Global Area Network) service, a mobile satellite offering that uses portable, lightweight terminals to provide simultaneous, high-speed data (up to 492 kbps) and voice connectivity anywhere in the world. BGAN is ideally suited to enable communications in areas where terrestrial or cellular networks are damaged, congested, non-existent or too difficult to deploy.

Today's announcement is the latest in a series of BGAN sales milestones for Stratos. Stratos activated the first BGAN system when the service was announced in late 2005. Inmarsat awarded Stratos for its outstanding BGAN campaign in 2006 and recognized Stratos as the world's top BGAN distributor in 2007. Earlier this week, Stratos announced the deployment of the world's largest single BGAN contract - 1,200 terminals for the Brazilian Electoral Superior Court - through its local partner Tesacom.

Since its introduction in late 2005, BGAN from Stratos has been widely adopted by military & NGO agencies, media organizations, first responders and professionals in many other industries worldwide. Stratos now boasts BGAN customers in 185 countries, which cover 95 percent of the BGAN footprint. Those customers fully utilize The Stratos Advantage, a suite of value-added services that help make BGAN usage more productive and affordable.

With the benefit of The Stratos Advantage, BGAN from Stratos is elevated far above baseline BGAN services. These value-added services, including Stratos Dashboard for BGAN, provide users with cost control, firewall management, full traffic information, pre-paid facilities, high security options, easy VPN access, messaging services and full IP range.

"This major milestone reinforces our position as the world's premier BGAN provider. It is an excellent indicator of our commitment to offering high-speed, mobile communications services that are cost-effective, reliable and easy to manage," said Stratos President and CEO Jim Parm. "Today's announcement also provides due recognition to our product and technical personnel who design and deploy our BGAN product line and value-added services, as well as to our customer-service professionals who ensure end-user satisfaction around the world and around the clock."

Inmarsat President and COO Michael Butler said, "Activating 10,000 BGAN terminals is a major achievement. Stratos has successfully targeted core sectors, introduced BGAN into new sectors, and delivered the service into critical markets worldwide. Stratos has made a significant contribution to the global success of BGAN and we look forward to their securing further BGAN market opportunities."  

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