GLOBALSTAR CONTINUES UNINTERRUPTED SERVICE IN GULF;
PROVIDES LIFELINE FOR AID WORKERS
Over 10,000 satellite phones distributed to Louisiana
and Gulf Region within five days of Hurricane Katrina
Globalstar LLC, the world's most widely used handheld
satellite phone provider, said today that it has deployed
more than 10,000 handheld satellite phones to customers
in the Gulf region, primarily government agencies and
relief workers, within the first week after Hurricane
Katrina landed. Globalstar also successfully increased
the capacity of its satellite network to ensure continued
communications service to the region.
“As the tragedy in the Gulf continues to develop,
our thoughts and prayers are with those affected, said
Jay Monroe, Chairman and CEO of Globalstar, LLC. “Our
first priority is to ensure that Globalstar provides
needed communications to government agencies, rescue
workers, and relief organizations. Now, we are working
to donate additional phones with unlimited free service
to shelters and with journalists who are visiting the
most affected areas so that people can call loved ones.”
Monroe noted that the Globalstar network continues
to function as designed and intended, with satellite
phones and modems providing continuous communications
service where land-based cellular and fixed-line services
are unavailable.
“This is exactly the kind of situation that we
have planned and trained for, and our network was designed
from the start to provide uninterrupted service regardless
of events on the ground,” Monroe said. “We
have taken aggressive measures and increased calling
capacity by many multiples to successfully keep ahead
of demand. Globalstar phones are working reliably. In
fact, the only challenge our customers are reporting
is that the cellular and landline numbers that they
are trying to call are still not consistently available.”
Globalstar has also accelerated shipments from equipment
vendors and increased its daily activation and provisioning
capabilities by over fifteen-fold to ensure that equipment
continues arriving as needed.
The company has also increased staffing at the Globalstar
satellite phone hotline at 1-877-728-7466, and at the
main Globalstar Customer Care center. “It’s
“all hands on deck” for us right now. Our
customer care and distribution staff is providing full
support throughout this crisis, and will continue to
do so as long as necessary,” Monroe said. “While
current wait times and activation times can be longer
than normal at points, every call will be answered.”
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