With a new hurricane season just underway and network outages a constant risk, SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES has announced Spacenet has signed a multiyear satellite capacity agreement to help meet growing demand for emergency communications capabilities across North America.

As part of the agreement, SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES is providing Spacenet with expanded capacity on its AMC-4, AMC-5 and AMC-6 satellites, enabling Spacenet to offer reliable anywhere, anytime connectivity to businesses, governments and law enforcement agencies in the event of catastrophic storms, network glitches, and other unforeseen outages.

The Missouri Department of Transportation's satellite-based continuity solution, winner of the 2009 Innovation and Technology Award at the International Satellite and Communications Exchange (ISCe) Conference, is one of a growing number of emergency networks delivered by Spacenet and SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES.

"Natural and network disasters know no boundaries, so we have enlisted SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES and three of the best-located satellites over North America to help us keep our business, government and public safety customers connected no matter what comes along," said Glenn Katz, Spacenet's President and Chief Operating Officer, noting the federal government's stimulus bill is driving business in support of rural underserved markets and public safety initiatives.

"We're implementing our fixed and mobile VSAT networks and leveraging SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES' always on connection in virtually every region of the country at the consumer and public safety level," Katz added.

"Insurance companies, banks, grocery chains, transportation and crisis management personnel, and law enforcement officials are among the mission-critical providers that have built their emergency communications networks on the Spacenet and SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES platforms," said Andrew Ruszkowski, Vice President of North America Enterprise Solutions for SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES.

"Satellite is often the only game in town when vast terrestrial networks are down. Our satellites are well positioned to provide redundancy and reliability to Spacenet and its customers across North America," Ruszkowski explained.

Like the Missouri DOT, corporations and organizations of all kinds are joining the Spacenet solution on the SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES platform, which integrates terrestrial communications assets with satellite connectivity to keep operations running when primary networks are affected.

The Missouri DOT solution is based on fixed and transportable satellite systems and supports full voice over IP (VoIP), Radio over IP, and Internet access. Seamless transmission and control capabilities enable the satellite system to interconnect with remote tower sites and legacy systems.