MBC upgrades Inmarsat facilities

"Inmarsat has a track record of superior voice, data and live video communications. With 17 GAN terminals, our reporters are closer than ever to our viewers and our stations," said Hassan Chahine, head of telecommunications at MBC.

Allowing MBC and Al Arabiyah's journalists to report from remote locations or from trouble spots where telecommunications facilities are not available or simply not reliable enough, the GAN high-speed service gives 'on demand' access to bandwidth across 98% of the world's landmass. The mobile ISDN service supports 64 kbit/s access to networks, email and Internet services and allows high quality voice, fax and 'store and forward' video or live videoconferencing.

When television viewers see 'via videophone' on a correspondent's live report, many do not realise the station is using Inmarsat GAN to transmit from the field. Inmarsat high-speed data technology has seen extensive use in coverage of regional events over the past 15 years.

Chahine said that 17 GAN terminals were being dispatched to MBC's and Al Arabiyah's reporters in Mali, Jordan, Turkey, Palestine, Kuwait and Iraq.

"GAN is an effective system to use because the channels of communication are not affected by so-called 'blind' areas," Chahine explains. "The main advantage of the GAN is its size and weight. Other similar equipment weighs from 300kg to 400kg, which is completely impractical some time for our use. In the case of the GAN, however, for urgent and breaking news, a reporter can literally grab his equipment and be on location on time, single-handedly. We are able to place reporters on location in areas where it is not feasible to send a conventional television uplink," he added.

Because they are constantly in touch with their control teams as well as broadcast media availability at Internet speeds, contributing journalists are able to share a 'knowledge pool' of up to the minute information with colleagues, and therefore can table more informed questions and investigations. Samer Halawi, regional director for Inmarsat Limited ended saying: "Media houses in the region have been at the forefront of news; today, they are able to compete with the traditionally larger broadcasting and newswires around the world and we are proud to provide the technology that underpins their competitiveness."