Kymeta announced the commercial availability of Kalo, a mobile satellite internet service that it operates in partnership with Intelsat.
The broadband data service uses a flat-panel antenna and electronically steered satellite terminals to provide connectivity for a variety of use cases, ranging from connected vehicles to freight trains to luxury yachts to construction vehicles.
Last month, Kymeta successfully tested Kalo by mounting one of its flat-panel antennas to the roof of a sport utility vehicle and driving it 7,000 miles across the country. The goal was to test the antenna’s ability to connect to satellites, even in remote places where it’s hard to secure internet access through traditional avenues.
Kalo, which was unveiled in March, is meant to be accessible from virtually anywhere in the world, thanks to Intelsat’s constellation of 52 telecom satellites. The bandwidth can exceed 100 megabits per second, which is comparable to cable modem speeds.
“With Kalo, Kymeta delivers up to 4 Mbps mobile internet service in familiar by-the-gigabyte plans,” Dushyant Sukhija, who oversees the Kalo business unit for Kymeta, said in a statement. “The release of Kalo marks a revolutionary change in the way satellite services are purchased and supplied. Kalo services provide a scalable, flexible, high-performance, high-throughput network with a broad geographic footprint, and we make that happen with service packages that are as easy to buy as a cell phone plan.”
We’re following up with Kymeta to get details about pricing and ordering.
Kalo is the centerpiece service offering from Kymeta, a Redmond, Wash.-based company that was spun out from Intellectual Ventures in 2012 with backing from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and other high-profile investors.
Kymeta, which raised a $73.5 million round in April, takes advantage of metamaterials, specially constructed electronic matrices that can bend electromagnetic waves to pick up satellite signals coming from any direction. The technology eliminates the need for moving parts, such as the gimbals that are traditionally required to point a dish at a given satellite.
Over the years, Kymeta has partnered with Intelsat as well as other big-name players, such Toyota, Inmarsat and Honeywell Aerospace, Panasonic, Sharp, Airbus, and Aurum Security.