Boeing wins satellite deal in $1.4 bln project.''
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 4 (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA - news). has won a
contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to help build a $1.4
billion satellite communications system for Mobile Communications
Holdings Inc., according to a joint statement released on Monday.
Boeing and Mobile Communications said Boeing will design, build and
deploy a global mobile satellite communications system called Ellipso.
The system is intended to bring affordable fixed, mobile and airborne
voice and data telecommunications throughout the world, the statement
said.
Although the system will focus on telephone service, it will also
provide digital data transfer, fax, paging, voice mail, messaging and
geopositioning services, it said.
The statement said Boeing will be an equity investor as well as
systems integrator contractor with Mobile Communications.
''The estimated contract value for the space and ground segments,
including launch services and system operations, is more than $1.4
billion,'' it said.
''Besides providing the tracking telemetry and command system, Boeing
also will perform at least two launches,'' it added.
Up to 300 Boeing employees will work on the project, which will
primarily be based in Southern California, the statement said.
A spokesman for Mobile Communications told Reuters the total amount of
capital involved in the project was $1.4 billion, with Boeing's part
worth ''hundreds of millions of dollars,'' but he declined to give a
precise figure.
The spokesman said the company had yet to determine how much of a
minority stake Boeing would have in the project.
He said Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT - news) and three other companies
were also involved in the project, and Mobile Communications was
talking with at least two other ''big players''.
He said Mobile Communications, whose name will change to Ellipso Inc.,
expected the project to begin ''sometime in the summer'' with the
launch of the first satellite in 2001.
He said the company had a stake of about 70 percent in the project.
"It could become diluted with new investors," he said. |
