AT&T, Terrestar Confirm Satellite-Cellular Phone Details

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The Terrestar Genus measures 4.7 by 2.5 by 0.8/0.6 inches and sports a 2.6-inch touch screen, Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, a 3-megapixel camera, 100 MB of internal storage and a microSD card slot to expand storage by 16 GB. Terrestar also confirmed the Genus has a VoIP phone application and Microsoft's Outlook and Office Mobile editions. It runs on Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional.

Neither AT&T nor Terrestar has confirmed pricing, but they expect the Terrestar Genus to arrive in the first quarter of 2010 and be initially available for enterprise and government users. The target markets would seem to be large government agencies like the Department of Homeland Defense, and other broad public-sector entities. A consumer version of the Genus is planned, the companies said.

"Terrestar is pleased to announce AT&T as a distribution channel," Jeffrey Epstein, president of Terrestar Networks, said in a statement. "Terrestar remains focused on offering an integrated satellite and terrestrial communications solution to enable true ubiquity and reliability virtually anywhere in the United States to help solve critical communications and business continuity challenges faced by government, emergency responders, enterprises and rural communities."

Satellite phones for mass-market consumption haven't gained much traction in the past, due to their bulky form factors and prohibitive pricing. The Terrestar Genus' size will help; previous attempts have often been unwieldy, large-size affairs, and Epstein described the Genus as being "smaller and more feature-rich than previous satellite devices."

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Terrestar completed testing of its TerreStar-1 satellite last month, part of the company's announced plans to advance a satellite terrestrial mobile broadband network.

While satellite phone services have often been dismissed as a niche market not sustainable for high-yield growth, a number of observers say that partnerships between satellite and cellular carriers -- such as AT&T and Terrestar's -- are a preview of things to come, especially as they relate to dual-mode smartphones and the ability to take advantage of coming 4G markets like Long-Term Evolution (LTE), which AT&T supports.

An ABI research analyst, Kevin Burden, said in July that collaboration between satellite and cellular carriers was a greenfield opportunity as it allowed carriers to take advantage of the U.S. FCC Ancillary Terrestrial Component Order of 2003 -- the law that allows satellite operators to offer both satellite and cellular services.