MalaysiaGIS.com

Source: The Star (page 50)

The message travels the aether through Orbcomm Global LP's satellite-based, wireless data and messaging system. While sipping your after-dinner coffee, you download the reply to your communicator - after chiding you for leaving the toilet seat cover down, your wife tells you to take care and come home safely. You, of course, don't remind her that you're where are because she had earlier told you to take a hike!

If Orbcomm has its way, jungle trekkers, mountaineers, yachting and boating enthusiasts, other outward-bound folks and husbands under severe admonishment from their wives, can call for help or simply send and receive short text or e-mail messages from anywhere in the world.

On the other end, a host of devices can be the recipient - computers, pagers, fax machines or mobile phones.

The Virginia-based Orbcomm service, jointly owned by Orbital Sciences Corp and Teleglobe Inc of Canada, does not support voice communications however. Celcom (M) Sdn. Bhd, its first international licensee in South-East Asia, demonstrated the system by sending In. Tech an e-mail from a Magellan GSC 100 alphanumeric subscriber communicator.

How It's Done Messages from Orbcomm subscribers' communicators are relayed via one of its low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites down to Celcom's Orbcomm Gateway Earth Station (GES) in Kijal, Terengganu, then via a leased line to its Gateway Control Center (GDD) in Petaling Jaya.

The GCC then converts it to the appropriate form for delivery to the recipient's pager, fax machine, an e-mail message on a PC or as a short message for a GSM mobile phone. Likewise, these recipients can reply to you by fax, e-mail or GSM phone. However, that last one comes with a small caveat: Message can only be received or sent using a Celcom GSM mobile phone, since short messaging is currently confined to each mobile operator's network.

Celcom Mobile services Division senior vice-president Zubir A. Rashid believes this situation will eventually change when the various local mobile network operators come round to addressing this problem of inter-network, messaging interconnectivity under guidelines (or perhaps the whip) of the Communications and Multimedia Commission.

To encourage "recreational" use of the Orbcomm system, Celcom - together with NSM Corporation, Sepakat GIS and University Teknologi Malaysia - installed an Orbcomm satellite communicator on each of Malaysia' s two solar bicycles in the Malaysian International Solar Cycle Challenge competition in June.

This allowed anyone with a web browser to view the current position of the two solar bikes on a special webpage, as the bikes raced from Johor Baru to Alor Star. The webpage was refreshed every five minutes to display the bikes' new positions.

The Cost Factor Monthly usage fees for personal messaging and navigation are based on the volume of data sent - RM250 per month for limited usage up to 10KB, and RM500 per month for unlimited usage.

Apart from recreational applications, the Orbcomm system can also be used to provide graphical weather information, e-mail messaging, position reporting and navigation for pilots of light planes, as well as communications with other vehicles using the Windows-based StratoCHEETAH Flight Manager II application by Echo Flight Inc.

Orbcomm can also be used to monitor soil for actual and potential landslides, water levels in rivers for impending floods, track and monitor the movement of wildlife, navigate using the Global Positioning System (GPS), and in search and rescue operations.

It can also be used in the oil and gas sector for remote meter reading, cathodic protection (see below) and monitoring of pipelines and storage facilities, monitoring of air and water quality, rainfall measurements and pollution in the sea. Likewise it can also be used to track the location and movement of the fishing vessels, containers and to receive any distress calls from the vessels.

Local Uses Currently, Celcom is engaged in about 12 pilot projects in Malaysia using the Orbcomm system. The company has installed 10 supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) units along Sungai Pahang to monitor rainfall and the river's water level. Data is relayed twice daily via the Orbcomm system to the Drainage and Irrigation Department's disaster control centre to provide early warning of impending flooding downstream.

Celcom is also working with Tenaga Nasional Berhad to use Scada units at certain points along the power line to detect power theft, which Tenaga says is costing it RM250mil annually. These Scada units can also be used to monitor Tenaga's many substations to detect a power failure immediately, via satellites, as well as to continually monitor the substations' health. The system would also enable Tenaga to read electricity meters remotely via satellite, and provide the data to its collection or billing sections, thus doing away with the need for meter readers to visit homes.

Celcom is working with Petronas to monitor the status of the cathodic protection equipment installed every 50km along its pipelines. Like Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, who remained forever young while his portrait aged, cathodic protection uses a small electrical current to make a dispensable piece of metal (i.e. the cathode) corrode, instead of the pipeline. Scada units can be used to remotely monitor other parameters along a pipeline. MAS Cargo uses the units to monitor the movement and whereabouts of its fleet of trucks, enabling MAS Cargo to monitor them for any unscheduled stops, thus preventing theft, allowing the company to send help in the event of an emergency, and to also optimise the trucks' routing.

Celcom itself is looking into using the Orbcomm system to monitor the status of equipment and the temperature at its cellular base stations and VSAT (very small aperture terminal) satellites, as well as to monitor and manage its fleet of 600 company vehicles.

It is working with its value added reseller NSM Corporation and with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia to provide a two-way messaging system via satellite which would enable billboards at bus stop to display the estimated arrival and departure times of buses.

It is also working on developing a Scada system which senses soil movement to provide an early warning system against landslides in Bukit Antarabangsa in Kuala Lumpur.

The Innards "Since Orbcomm's satellites are in low-earth-orbit, transmission equipment in the Scada units consume a mere 0.5mA when receiving, and 1.5A when transmitting," says Celcom vice-president for Orbcomm services, Kamshul Kasim. "As such, they conserve battery power and lend themselves to being powered by solar cells," he adds. The system works in the VHF (very high frequency) radio band and in the UHF (ultra high frequency) band for Doppler positioning. Orbcomm's satellites support subscriber uplink data rates of up to 2.4Kbps and subscriber downlink speeds of up to 9.6Kbps. Orbcomm currently has 28 MicroStar satellites in low-earth-orbit and will have a total 35 satellites in orbit by the end of October.

The Orbcomm system supports the international X.400 messaging and X.25 packet-switched data protocol, as well as leased line and dial-up networks, and e-mail networks including the Internet.

Celcom acquired a 15% stake in Orbcomm in 1994, which it subsequently sold last year, although Celcom claims it influenced some of Orbcomm's services while it was a shareholder.

It launched the service in Malaysia on July 12, and currently has nine value added resellers (VARs) in Malaysia. It recently appointed Satellite Broadcast and Communications Sdn Bhd (SBC) in Brunei as its sole agent there, and is currently negotiating with a representative in Singapore. With the help of its VARs, the company hopes to have at least 2,000 installations in place and 15% market penetration by the end of next year, and 20% additional penetration each year thereafter. It currently has 50 units in pilot projects or on demonstration.

Apart from Magellan Corporation, its subscriber communicators are also made by Panasonic Industrial Company, Scientific Atlanta, Stellar Communications Ltd and Quake Wireless Inc. They typically cost around US$500 (RM1,900) or RM3,000 after tax.

Meanwhile, Loxley Wirelss Limited in Thailand has agreed to use Celcom's earth station in Kijal as Orbcomm gateway, and Loxley is also working with its VARs to develop a low-cost subscriber communicator costing about US$50 (RM190) for utilities applications.