What are mobile sat services?

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Mobile satellite services use networks of satellites to provide wireless communication, improving efficiency and enabling international calling. Satellites in low and medium earth orbits allow for efficient transmissions and connections with terrestrial cellular networks. Mobile satellite services can be used to connect wireless systems anywhere in the world, including on commercial airliners over oceans and countries with less developed cellular networks.

Mobile satellite services (MSS) are collections or networks of satellites specifically configured for the provision of wireless communications, such as cell phones and wireless cell phones. The use of these communication satellites has greatly increased the level of efficiency with many types of audio services, especially international calling. By leveraging the strategic placement of each satellite, a network can be created that will allow clear signaling around the world, even under conditions that once made it impossible to place a call.

Using mobile satellite services is not dissimilar to using a conventional cellular telephone connection. However, since the cell towers are not on the ground but in the atmosphere above the planet, the level of interference is generally considered to be lower. The MSS process involves the use of satellites positioned in orbits considered to be of low and medium earth nature.

This allows for the most efficient use of transmissions from one part of the network to the other, as long as the point of origin and the point of termination are connected. When needed, the mobile satellite service network will interconnect with terrestrial cellular networks, usually as part of access switches in local calling areas. Using this system, any two wireless systems can be connected in communication, regardless of where they are in the world.

One of the easiest ways to understand how mobile satellite services work is to consider the use of telephones inside commercial airliners. Typically, telephone services are operated by connecting with land-based cellular carriers when the airliner passes over land that is included in the territory of a given service provider. However, when traveling over oceans and countries with less developed cellular networks, mobile satellite services would allow passengers to continue to use onboard phones to make contact with telephone subscribers anywhere, regardless of the subscriber’s location. By establishing a link between the airliner and a satellite, the signal can then be relayed through the MSS network, possibly transferred to a terrestrial relay, and be routed to the termination point.




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