Iridium Certus 700 IP Performance Testing

Abstract

In the last years there have been increased military and civilian activity in the Arctic. Earlier studies from the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) have concluded that a non-geostationary satellite system is necessary in order to provide the Norwegian Armed Forces with communications capacity in the northern areas. One candidate is the Iridium satellite system. FFI tested the performance of the Iridium Certus 350 service in 2019. An Iridium Certus upgrade in 2020 should give increased performance and a new measurement campaign was conducted in January and February 2021. This report presents the test results and concludes that the shortcomings observed in 2019 still remain.