The network will use ComStream's VSATPlus II technology. The project begins with a regional gateway in the capital city of Ulannbaatar and a relatively small number of remote sites scattered throughout the country. First phase installation will be completed by the end of 1997, and the entire project is expected to be operational by the year 2000.

Mongolia is a huge, rugged, landlocked country in the center of the Asian continent. Home of the famous Gobi desert as well as 2,000 lakes and enormous mountain ranges, the country's climate is harsh and extreme. Population is 2.4 million and population density is only 1.5 inhabitants per 1 sq. km, among the lowest in the world.

Mongolian Telecommunications Corporation (MTC) is responsible for all international and domestic basic telecommunications service in Mongolia. To address the need for additional services in its isolated areas, MTC has been seeking ways to build a solid, dependable infrastructure.

The time and cost to reach these communities using fixed wireline, fiber, and microwave-based solutions were prohibitive. For that reason, robust, expandable satellite telecommunications technology such as ComStream's VSATPlus II system was considered critical to this project.

At the new network's gateway in Ulaanbaar, ComStream will install two redundant VSATPlus IIe terminals with a C-Band antenna. One terminal will support 30 channels of 16 kbps voice and 8 channels of 9.6 kbps voice. The other terminal will support 8 ports capable of transferring data at up to 512 kbps. The remote sites each will have VSATPlus II terminals that support voice and data transmission. The VSATPlus II network will access the Intelsat 801 satellite.

Among its features, the VSATPlus II system has full-mesh, expandable, multiservice TDMA-DAMA capability. This capability makes it possible for people to telephone from any remote site to any other remote site within the entire network, eliminating the need for an expensive central hub and also eliminating any single point of failure that could take the entire network down.