Following the natural disasters that hit the East Coast of the US in back-to-back storms, Speedcast continues to support urgent connectivity efforts on the ground across the region. The global communications and IT services provider is delivering Starlink broadband connectivity kits to multiple state agencies, utilities, banks and contractors, providing network and disaster response services across parts of North Carolina and Florida following hurricanes Helene and Milton. With terrestrial telecommunications out of service, the Starlink terminals are being used to restore high-speed connectivity essential to coordinating disaster response and recovery efforts, with the added benefit of being able to move the portable terminals wherever they are most needed.
Speedcast has delivered and activated more than 200 Starlink kits to crisis response teams, hospitals and agencies that support courts, search and rescue and human welfare in the region. Many of the kits were deployed within 24 hours to support urgent response needs.
Speedcast is the world’s leading authorized Starlink integrator, with over 9,000 kits sold since adding the service to its connectivity toolkit at the end of 2022. Starlink’s high-capacity, low-cost service and automated, self-aligning terminals have made it a popular choice for crisis response to quickly turn up internet connectivity to mobile and remote sites hard hit by natural disasters.
“The strong relationship we have in place with Starlink, along with our global scale of operations, enables us to respond rapidly when a crisis hits – something that every Speedcast employee has been proud to do for the people of Florida and North Carolina,” said James Trevelyan, Executive Vice President, Global Sales at Speedcast. “Our teams in the U.S. stationed equipment, worked quickly to deploy kits, and were available to customers for technical support when it mattered most.”
Disaster response demands speed and simplicity. But for other Starlink installations, Speedcast typically integrates the service into its SIGMA platform, which manages access to a global network across GEO, MEO, LEO and L-band satellite and 4G/LTE, microwave and fiber. The platform
provides network optimization and intelligent path selection, load balancing, link prioritization and monitoring, and application steering. SIGMA’s enterprise SD-WAN software seamlessly blends multiple network paths into a single optimized, secure wide-area network that delivers high-quality of service and 100% uptime.
The software-based SIGMA platform continuously monitors every network path for availability, throughput and quality of service and – prioritizing by factors from cost to latency – automatically routes traffic through the best path. In addition to best performance regardless of location or weather, SIGMA makes the most efficient use of bandwidth and enables reduction in the total capacity and cost needed to meet requirements. For Starlink installations, SIGMA enables customers to apply the LEO-based offering’s high bandwidth and low cost benefits to a hybrid network without sacrificing quality of service for critical applications.