Vodafone Cook Islands (VCI) has launched a satellite direct-to-mobile phone service in partnership with ‘sat2phone’ provider Lynk Global.
Dan Dooley, Lynk CCO, disclosed: ‘Lynk has been entrusted to deliver initial service for VCI, which spans 15 islands and 1,960,027 square kilometres of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that comprise the Cook Islands … Our initial Sat2Phone service will start as a beta service in an area called Manuae Route and extend over time. Similar to the service we offer to PNCC in Palau, Lynk will also provide backup services that enhance network resilience when natural disasters damage the ground network.’ VCI CEO Phillip Henderson added: ‘Given the vast area of the Cook Islands, we at Vodafone have always sought innovative technology to improve connectivity to remote islands, atolls, and the sea in between. Lynk’s service is unique in addressing our need to extend our mobile coverage but without burdensome CAPEX. We see our remote communities, our fishers, and visiting yachties making good use of the extra connectivity and coverage that Lynk provides.’
While VCI is the second mobile network operator (MNO) in the world to launch Lynk’s sat2phone technology as a subscriber service, Lynk notes that sat2phone is currently ‘being deployed in more than 20 countries with over 30 MNO commercial service contracts covering over 50 countries’.
Source: https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2023/08/08/vodafone-cook-islands-and-lynk-launch-sat2phone/