ICO Global Communications is an international company with over sixty strategic investors. The ICO system includes ten satellites and two in orbit spares located 10,355 km above the earth. Each satellite has 163 spot beams supporting over 4,500 simultaneous voice and/or data calls. The ICO ground control facilities consist of twelve access nodes, a network management centre and satellite control centre. The ICO system supports roaming between IS-41, GSM and PDC terrestrial wireless networks, providing an extensive suite of services and facilities which are configurable for a wide range of possible services. This paper examines the current state of play in the road telematics market and the impact of the ICO global mobile personal communications service on the road transport environment. (A*)
Samenvatting