Eutelsat has committed satellite resources and technical expertise towards emergency response efforts around the globe
The Space & Satellite Professionals International yesterday recognised the signatories to the Crisis Connectivity Charter, including Eutelsat, with the Better Satellite World Award during a ceremony in London, which annually acknowledges the contributions of the satellite industry to the global economy, safety, security, governance, development and health.
The Crisis Connectivity Charter was signed in late 2015 between the Global VSAT Forum (GVF), the EMEA Satellite Operators Association (ESOA), the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA) and the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) to help the humanitarian community by enhancing their access to vital satellite-based communications when local networks are affected, destroyed or overloaded following disasters. It entered into its operational phase in May of this year through the signature of contribution agreements with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), on behalf of the ETC.
In the context of the Charter, Eutelsat has committed pre-allocated bandwidth on four of its satellites across the globe, complemented on the ground by ready-to-deploy satellite kits, enabling emergency telecommunications services to be deployed in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas within 24 hours of a crisis.
Commenting on the award, Simon Gray, Vice President of Humanitarian Affairs of Eutelsat, said: “We are honoured to be receiving this award as a signatory of the Crisis Connectivity Charter. The resilience and quick deployment of satellite solutions place our industry in a unique position to support relief efforts and we are proud to be the first industrial sector to be undertaking such a unified effort to standardise disaster response on a global scale.”
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