US MSS operator Iridium has blasted the free airplane tracking offer from its UK-based rival Inmarsat as “opportunistic and self-serving”. Iridium CEO Matt Desch said that unlike its upcoming Aireon service the move would do nothing to help manage…
US MSS operator Iridium has blasted the free airplane tracking offer from its UK-based rival Inmarsat as “opportunistic and self-serving”.
Iridium CEO Matt Desch said that unlike its upcoming Aireon service the move would do nothing to help manage aircraft more efficiently, and has more to do with Inmarsat being unable to locate Malaysia’s MH370 airplane on its system.
“I think most people recognise that proposal for what it was – and frankly I don’t think it was just about Aireon, I think it was about covering up the fact that they couldn’t find the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, and they were deflecting opinion a bit from all that,” he said in an interview with SatelliteFinance.
An Inmarsat spokesman said: “Iridium’s surprising comment has no foundation in fact. The airliner had ACARS and a transponder through Classic Aero. Someone or something turned them off. The same might have been true of any other operator’s equipment.”
The British satellite operator announced on 12 May that, in the wake of the loss of MH370, it was ready to start offering free basic tracking services on the more than 90% of wide-bodied commercial planes that already have its technology installed.
According to Desch, the move is part of an attempt to create a monopoly in aviation safety through its ADS-C technology – as opposed to Aireon’s ADS-B system – like it already has in maritime.
“Despite the way they positioned it, it wasn’t for altruistic purposes,” he said.
Aireon will be a payload on 72 satellites that Iridium plans to launch between 2015 and 2017. In return for a fee, it promises customers significant savings from being able to fly aircraft more optimally through near real-time information. It claims that Inmarsat’s free service would not be able to do this because it only provides updates on an aircraft’s location every 15 minutes.
But Inmarsat said the free service was about what it could do “right now” to improve aviation safety, and that from next year it will be able to offer enhanced features. The company dismissed outright that it was after a monopoly on aviation safety.
“We are not here to say whether or not this should be mandated,” said a spokesman.
“If individual airlines want to take up the free safety service then this is open to all.”
Battle on the seas
As well as in aeronautical satellite communications, Iridium and Inmarsat also directly compete on land and in maritime, with the latter being another area of recent contention.
Inmarsat CEO Rupert Pearce has hit out over Iridium’s application for Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) accreditation, because of the age and alleged reliability levels of Iridium’s satellite constellation.
During its Q1 results call on 7 May, Pearce said: “While we obviously welcome competition and innovation around GMDSS and safety services generally, the most important thing is that the standards of quality for safety services are maintained, if not enhanced frankly.
“And fundamental to that is 99.99% availability on your network and we do not believe that Iridium even comes close to that level of performance, and it is as such utterly inappropriate that they should even apply let alone be granted accreditation in that situation, because lives will be lost if people install that equipment and it’s not available when they need it. And in the context of safety services as opposed to commercial services the consequences are ghastly to think about.
“So quite frankly we will be asking the regulators just to wait until much further down the road when alternative networks may be up and may deliver that kind of availability before they think about hoisting that kind of service on a mariner out there on the oceans needing help.”
Speaking on the matter now it has ended a quiet period surrounding Iridium’s recent fundraising, Desch lambasted the remarks as “absolutely unadulterated nonsense” and the “rantings of a former monopolist who would love to become a monopolist again if it could”.
He said: “Our network is healthy and performing well, it does provide very high availability and robust service, and there’s a process right now over the next 18 months to prove that to the industry.
“I think we should let the industry make the decision and not take the word of someone who clearly has a vested interest in not having a competitor. It clearly is a great concern to them because they’ve had a 35-year monopoly, and I don’t know how you could look at it any other way other than they’re very scared of Iridium.
“We offer better coverage, lower cost solutions and a brand new network that will begin to launch next year. It clearly is rattling them if their response is something so incredibly silly and preposterous.”
