NEC Corp recently won an order valued at approximately $616m for the global ground infrastructure for ICO Global Communications mobile satellite communications systems. ICO was set up in December 1994 to provide mobile communications from any location on the planet; for this purpose it will use a system of ten satellites and twelve satellite access nodes linked into existing public and mobile networks. It expects to begin a full commercial service in the year 2000. NEC will supply equipment, installation and testing for the satellite testing nodes and network management system. Each satellite node will consist of radio frequency terminals, a satellite base station and channel units as well as a mobile satellite switching center.
