Founded in 1981, MTN Satellite Communications (MTN), formerly known as Maritime Telecommunications Network, is a privately held VSAT satellite

Satellite

In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....

 service provider headquartered in Miramar, Florida

Miramar, Florida

Miramar is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. The city was named after the Miramar district of Havana, Cuba. As of the 2010 census, the population was 122,041...

, USA. The company revolutionized the cruise line communications industry by providing the first C band

C band

The C band is a name given to certain portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, including wavelengths of microwaves that are used for long-distance radio telecommunications. The IEEE C-band - and its slight variations - contains frequency ranges that are used for many satellite communications...

 stabilized antenna system on board cruise ships sailing at sea. MTN provides connectivity services to major cruise lines, including Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean International

Royal Caribbean International

Royal Caribbean International is a Norwegian and American cruise line brand based in Miami, Florida and owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.. With 42 ships in service under 5 different brands and one more under construction, it controls a 25.6% share of the world cruise market...

, Norwegian Cruise Line

Norwegian Cruise Line

Norwegian Cruise Line is a company operating cruise ships, headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida. It began operations in 1966 under the name Norwegian Caribbean Line. The company is best known for its Freestyle Cruising concept, which means that there are no set times or...

s and many others around the world as well as other large maritime entities including luxury yachts, oil rig

Oil platform

An oil platform, also referred to as an offshore platform or, somewhat incorrectly, oil rig, is a lаrge structure with facilities to drill wells, to extract and process oil and natural gas, and to temporarily store product until it can be brought to shore for refining and marketing...

s, government and military vessels, and commercial vessels.

MTN Holmdel Teleport

The company wholly owns and operates its own teleport facility in Holmdel, New Jersey, USA. The facility is 10,000 sq. feet. and supports transmission needs of government agencies, ISPs, television broadcasters, cable programmers, carriers, business television and radio. The MTN teleport has access to a variety of spacecraft, as well as the U.S. domestic arc serving the Pacific, Atlantic, and Western Indian Ocean regions. Holmdel is the only U.S. teleport connecting with IS at 359 degrees East Longitude.

Santander Teleport

The Santander teleport is a joint venture developed and completed by MTN and its technology partner, Erzia, a provider of VSAT maritime communications in Spain. The Santander teleport serves as a centralized gateway for MTN’s VSAT communications with coverage over the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The facility is located in Santander, North Spain at 43°27’46’’N, 3°48’18’’W.

USS Scranton and Good Morning America

On November 23, 2005 ABC's Good Morning America

Good Morning America

Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

ran a segment called "Run Silent, Run Deep" which was broadcast live from the nuclear submarine

Nuclear submarine

A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor . The performance advantages of nuclear submarines over "conventional" submarines are considerable: nuclear propulsion, being completely independent of air, frees the submarine from the need to surface frequently, as is necessary for...

 USS Scranton (SSN-756)

USS Scranton (SSN-756)

USS Scranton , a , is the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for Scranton, Pennsylvania.The contract to build her was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Newport News, Virginia on 26 November 1984 and construction began on 29 August 1986. She was launched on...

 while it was moving. The submarine and the US Navy support vessel USNS Dolores Chouest were each equipped with a 1900 MHz high-gain microwave antenna and equipment. The people on board the submarine had cellular service via a CDMA picocell

Picocell

A picocell is a small cellular basestation typically covering a small area, such as in-building , or more recently in-aircraft...

 on board the support vessel. The cell was provided by Wireless Maritime Services, a joint venture

Joint venture

A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...

 between MTN and Cingular Wireless

Cingular Wireless

AT&T Mobility LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T that provides wireless services to 100.7 million subscribers in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands...

. The submarine transmitted the live video broadcast quality

Broadcast quality

Broadcast Quality is an term stemming from quad videotape to denote the quality achieved by professional video cameras and time base correctors used for broadcast television, usually in standard definition...

 to the Dolores Chouest using bidirectional microwave radios. The cellular technology was used to support all of the live two-way communications between the studio in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 and the submarine below the surface. All of the video and cellular

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

traffic was uplinked via MTN's communications technology on board the Dolores Chouest.