PetroCom’s VSAT Sat Services Completely Operational

PetroCom is making great strides in repairing its communication systems that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Patched very small aperture terminal (VSAT) satellite and wireless systems that were quickly operational with ingenuity and resourcefulness are now repaired properly and working near capacity. “My staff has done an unbelievable job of improvising and thinking outside of the box to restore services. Our first goal was to patch communication trunk-lines and make them operational, which allowed us to evaluate the full extent of the damages,” said PetroCom President & COO Ken Wright. “We have restored our satellite backbones to full capacity and are now working closely with platform owners to repair dedicated equipment and speed the recovery of the Gulf’s oil and gas industry.” PetroCom’s DS3 fiber-optic connection has been repaired in New Orleans and VSAT satellite services are fully operational and capable of running at full capacity. PetroCom has deployed portable VSAT systems to replace damaged, dedicated equipment in the Gulf of Mexico. Portable VSAT systems are available for immediate installation. Repairs on the wireless switch that handles GSM and analog wireless communication are complete, and terrestrial communication interconnects have been re-established. Terrestrial connectivity has been greatly restored to land-based switched networks. The cellular network is capable of carrying 75 percent of the volume it handled before Hurricane Katrina and 36 of 43 Gulf cell sites are functioning. PetroCom is working with platform owners to continue service restoration. A list of functional towers can be found at www.petrocom.com/StormTrack/public/. PetroCom’s roaming capabilities with Cingular Wireless have been restored, and its wireless switches are processing analog and GSM cellular traffic from many of their towers in the Gulf. Several small voice/data/fax wireless communication packages are available for short-term use.