Although Inmarsat officials insist that the company is exploring ways to alleviate Swift64 data traffic congestion–which has been preventing many users of the satellite ISDN service from accessing the network at peak times–they say improvements won’t come until this summer when engineers start implementing a number of technical remedies designed to free up additional frequency spectrum.
The situation reached a head on February 28 when stock markets in China and the U.S. began precipitous slides and business jet passengers, particularly those on the U.S. East Coast, reached for their laptops only to find that getting connected was impossible. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 3.3 percent–the largest single-day drop since the 9/11 terrorist attacks–causing a surge of airborne data traffic that left CEOs and other high-flying VIPs with no way of monitoring the markets and, perhaps just as important, placing online sell orders.
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