Ground Control Joins Inmarsat ELEVATE Program to Focus on Satellite IoT Opportunities

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Inmarsat, the world leader in global, mobile satellite communications, has launched a new IoT service plan to drive growth and generate long term business for its distribution partners. This new service plan will be available to distribution partners who have signed up to its ELEVATE program, with remote connectivity solutions provider, Ground Control, the first business to benefit from the offering.

Inmarsat’s new ‘Internet of Things Growth Plan’ will give distribution partners access to a preferential pricing framework to help build competitive large scale IoT solutions using the BGAN M2M service. The pricing plan is just the latest benefit to be enjoyed by members of the ELEVATE program, the goal of which is to attract highly innovative, fast-moving IoT solution providers into the BGAN M2M fold.

With Inmarsat and Ground Control building on their existing relationship and pledging even closer strategic alignment going forward, the latter will unlock value from the new pricing model as the businesses look to work together on larger scale, global IoT projects over the coming months.

The pair also plan to develop several new joint solutions for the ELEVATE marketplace in the future. Ground Control expects to introduce a number of its existing solutions to the ecosystem in the meantime, including integrating all BGAN M2M airtime packages into its next-generation data and device management platform, Cloudloop. This will enable existing and future customers to track, monitor and control their BGAN M2M terminals from any location.

The new pricing framework will be available to all distribution partners when they sign-up to the ELEVATE program going forward, delivering significant cost benefits for themselves and their end users, in addition to gaining access to broader capabilities and solutions via the partner ecosystem.

Mike Carter, President at Inmarsat Enterprise, said “The launch of our IoT Growth Plan is an important update to our ELEVATE offering and we’re excited to see how it advances and accelerates our work with existing and new distribution partners to turbocharge the development of mission critical satellite IoT solutions across industries. We believe our partner ecosystem is key to helping solve some of the world’s biggest challenges through the power of satellite IoT.

“We’re excited to be kicking this next phase of our ELEVATE journey off with our long-term partner Ground Control and look forward to welcoming more distribution partners to the family going forward.”

Alastair MacLeod, CEO of Ground Control, added “We are delighted to be the first distribution partner to have joined Inmarsat’s ELEVATE program and look forward to strengthening our strategic alignment with Inmarsat over the coming months. We believe close collaboration and access to reliable satellite connectivity are vital to harnessing the true value of IoT solutions across sectors and couldn’t have picked a better partner to achieve this with.”

Inmarsat’s ELEVATE program is open to new entrants, disruptors, and established brands of any size who have developed an innovative digital product or service but may need additional support to exploit the benefits of satellite-enabled IoT solutions. Inmarsat provides dedicated technical guidance on how to integrate and support its highly reliable satellite services, go-to-market strategy planning and exposure to the Inmarsat distribution channel to enable access to new markets.

Providers working across a diverse range of industries, including agriculture, aid and NGOs, energy, exploration and leisure, media, mining, transport and utilities, as well as agnostic technology providers, will be considered for membership.