Inland Cellular Brings Critical 4G Broadband to Rural Areas Using Intelsat CellBackhaul

Intelsat managed service helps Inland Cellular extend broadband connectivity to underserved customers in remote areas of Washington state

Intelsat, operator of the world’s largest integrated satellite and terrestrial network, and Inland Cellular, a regional mobile network operator (MNO) serving communities in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, are partnering to bring reliable 4G LTE broadband coverage to people in rural areas of Washington state.

“That’s precisely why we launched Intelsat CellBackhaul, so mobile operators like Inland Cellular, who serve large rural areas, can quickly and efficiently expand their coverage to travelers, vacationers, rural businesses, tourist operations and IoT integrators — ultimately connecting more people and places”

Inland Cellular needed an efficient way to extend its high-performance service to customers no matter where they live, work or travel – particularly customers in rural areas and at remote construction, mining and camping sites. Intelsat CellBackhaul, an end-to-end managed service launched earlier this year, proved an ideal solution because it overcomes the technical, but mostly importantly, the economic challenges often associated with traditional, terrestrial backhaul deployments for rural coverage.

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Intelsat CellBackhaul delivers a fully managed end-to-end cellular backhaul service that provides connectivity over Intelsat’s global network. The service includes on-site installation and maintenance of equipment, such as antennas and modems, and is available through a number of flexible service plans configured to meet differing MNO business needs.

“Our partnership with Intelsat helps increase our speed to market and more efficiently meet peak seasonal demand for connectivity in the areas we serve,” said Inland Cellular President Nathan Weis. “We are a small company that differentiates itself through exceptional customer service, so ensuring our subscribers can stay connected wherever they may go is of the utmost importance to us. With Intelsat CellBackhaul as part of our comprehensive network strategy, we can do just that.”

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Today, 97% of the U.S. is considered rural, with low levels of population density, and large parts are still without 4G coverage, a need which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While traditional terrestrial backhaul approaches work well for urban and suburban coverage, the business case for rural expansion breaks down when factoring in the high cost of building out fiber or microwave, the deployment of which also takes a lot of time, disruption and planning.

Intelsat CellBackhaul is uniquely positioned to enable MNOs of any size to quickly and economically backhaul high-quality, reliable mobile broadband coverage in rural, low-population density regions, and hard-to-reach areas of the U.S.

“That’s precisely why we launched Intelsat CellBackhaul, so mobile operators like Inland Cellular, who serve large rural areas, can quickly and efficiently expand their coverage to travelers, vacationers, rural businesses, tourist operations and IoT integrators — ultimately connecting more people and places,” said Intelsat Regional Vice President of North America Tim Schermerhorn. “We look forward to a long and productive partnership with Inland Cellular, helping them grow their business by expanding their coverage beyond the limits of terrestrial backhaul.”

On the Inland Cellular deployment, Intelsat partnered with U.S.-based equipment providers Comtech EF Data and Trilogy Networks.

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