Inmarsat's ambitious project for a satellite-based broadband mobile solution is making slow but steady progress. London-based Inmarsat has promised a broadband global area network (BGAN) service, planned for mid-2005. In many respects, this Inmarsat service is already in place today, operating through leased capacity on the giant Thuraya satellite, which serves 99 countries including the whole of the Middle East, all of Europe and much of Northern Africa and the rest of the near-East. This so-called "regional BGAN" system is itself quite spectacular; but nothing like as sophisticated as Inmarsat's all-singing, all-dancing BGAN service, designed to supply satellite-based broadband access to users almost anywhere on the planet, at affordable rates and speeds comparable to GPRS.