Forget about the LANs and WANs, the Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) is here.

Telecommunication giant Inmarsat are set to launch the second in a series of two super-satellites into orbit in weeks time. They are among the most powerful commercial communications spacecraft in orbit, and they will serve as switchboards in the sky for Inmarsats’s BGAN service.

The service is scheduled for rollout in 2006, and until then, you don’t have to sit in a Starbucks of McCafe for wireless broadband service, you can hit the road and get online, or connect to your office LAN in just anywhere on Earth, at broadband speeds of up to 492 Kbps.

Source: Wired News
See the BGAN Coverage Map [PDF]