Types of Satellite Service
Satellite service comes in many sizes and shapes. The optimal configuration is determined by the dynamics of your business, and what you are backing up or recovering.
Fixed to Fixed configurations can be used to include command centers and "first responder" locations; sometimes also referred to as EMT (Executive Management Team) locations. From a recovery headquarters, other newly established fixed locations can be quickly provisioned and coordinated by satellite communications. These locations can include, for example, field operation sites, damaged site recovery teams, and hot sites.
Fixed to Mobile configurations, as the name implies, are satellite communications from fixed locations. These mobile configurations might involve insurance adjusters and damages appraisers, "CAT" (catastrophe) teams, emergency medical units, and a host of other mobile resources.
Mobile to Mobile configurations can be used to help nomadic users interoperate with one another—for example, land-based terrestrial, maritime, and airborne recovery assets. All of them can stay in close communication by satellite because of the vastly reduced size of equipment and antennae in recent years. When one considers that satellite units are routinely affixed to shipping containers and UPS trucks these days, it is little wonder that they have evolved into numerous mobile platforms, each of which has distinct advantages in a disaster area.