SatelLife uses its satellite, Healthsat II, to complement its unique communications system called HealthNet that disseminates health related information and facilitates discussion between health professionals. In addition to this growing consortium of satellite providers, a parallel initiative is being mounted to create a coalition of non-government organization and other users involved in development and humanitarian aid. These satellite users will utilize the growing system in exchange for their assistance to indigenous organizations in developing information technology skills. Martins, Lown, and Norman agree that achieving the goals of their collaboration face political, regulatory, financial and organizational challenges. One major technical challenge is designing a ground station or user terminal that can communicate with different satellites.
Discussions are in progress with companies with the capability of producing such a terminal.
The entire system will utilize special gateways to the Internet located in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. As these gateways are multiplied and added to the growing number of participating satellites, the capacity and speed of communications is increasing accordingly.