Lynk Global, Inc. (Lynk), the world’s leading satellite-direct-to-phone telecoms company, today announced that it has signed multiple commercial contracts with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) covering seven island nations in the Pacific and Caribbean, including with Telikom PNG in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and bmobile in the Solomon Islands. Lynk has seen a clear acceleration of contract signings with island nations in response to the recent disaster in Tonga.
Islands create many difficult challenges for mobile connectivity, including hard to reach locations that drive up the cost of tower construction, exposure to the harsh maritime environment that constantly degrades towers, increasing maintenance costs, and reducing reliability, and populations that are dispersed across large geographies.
Lynk's satellites offer a constellation of cell towers in space that will enable PNG and Solomon islands’ subscribers to stay connected across their nations’ vast terrain simply using their standard unmodified mobile phones. PNG has a land mass spanning more than 460,000 kilometers and a population of nine million residents of which more than 80% are considered rural and have limited or no mobile phone connectivity with the current terrestrial cell tower infrastructure. The Solomon Islands are spread over 1.6 million kilometers and is the 22nd largest maritime exclusive economic zone in the world. Over 75% of residents of the Solomon Islands live outside urban areas, with 60% living in localities with fewer than 200 people.
"Mobile phone connectivity across land and sea continues to be a major priority for Papua New Guinea and our neighbor the Solomon Islands," says Amos Tepi, Acting CEO, Telikom PNG. "As our government continues to re-evaluate the infrastructure needed to keep our people, including our fishermen, safe and connected. The option to bypass mobile base stations is increasingly relevant to our communities especially in far flung locations. Lynk's mobile phone connectivity – through mobile base stations-in-space via a network of satellites – is ideally suited to meet current and future demands of Papua New Guinea," he continues.
With these agreements, Lynk eliminates much of the need to invest in land-based infrastructure and mobile towers for mobile connectivity throughout island nations. Lynk's satellite-direct-to-standard-phone service solves the 0G connectivity problem for residents of the islands of all these nations, as well as the fishing villages across vast regions. Lynk also provides an ‘everyone everywhere emergency’ (EEE) alert service, which notifies populations ahead of natural disasters, while offering instant backup after disasters hit.
"Lynk's global commercial service is poised to launch later this year. We continue to add carriers as launch partners and anticipate more in the coming months," notes Charles Miller, Lynk CEO. "0G, that is lack of any coverage, compromises people’s safety. The recent Tonga disaster shows just how important connectivity is for people’s health and safety during a disaster. It is not just volcanoes and tsunamis that we need to worry about … it is hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, tornadoes and blizzards, too. Today, Lynk is solving the 0G problem in seven island nations. Tomorrow, we will provide the ultimate safety net that ensures everyone, everywhere in the world can access mobile connectivity, no matter what happens."
Lynk’s most recent test satellite (its fifth prototype cell-tower-in-space) has completed all its major technical milestones. It has connected thousands of unique devices across five different countries, (Bahamas, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States), enabling direct two-way connectivity between devices and Lynk’s satellites.
Source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220223005174/en