ICO Global Communications will launch its next-generation satellite April 14, the Reston company said Tuesday.
The ICO G-1 satellite, which will be launched by Bethesda’s Lockheed Martin, will allow the company to offer a new data service that the firm is calling ICO mim, or mobile interactive media.
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The project will use satellites to transmit video, navigation and emergency assistance information to mobile devices, targeting customers such as families traveling by car who want entertainment programming, executives said.
ICO has invested $450 million to $500 million in the new program, Chief Executive Tim Bryan said during a teleconference Tuesday; the firm just spent $44 million to get the satellite insured.
The company’s long-term strategy is to focus on the ICO mim service, while looking at other opportunities as they come along, Chairman Craig McCaw said during the conference.
“We want to de-risk the business as much as possible without spending unnecessary money that we might want in the future,” he said.
The ICO mim service will be offered commercially in early 2009, Bryan said.
The firm is looking to find more partners that will offer content; it already has partnered with NBC Universal to offer television content.
McCaw is also the founder of Clearwire, which had been working with Reston telecommunications company Sprint Nextel on a different high-speed data service known as WiMax until the agreement was terminated in November.
A recent article on TheStreet.com said the companies may be reconsidering a partnership.
The line between companies like ICO and Sprint Nextel is becoming more blurry, analysts have said.
“The mobile satellite market is converging with the wireless and terrestrial world in many ways to offer new products that integrate [cellular], GPS and … capabilities for voice, data and video products,” said a recent report by Northern Sky Research, which follows ICO. “NSR believes that the MSS industry will see consolidation in the next few years.”
