PARIS — Mobile satellite services provider Inmarsat, whose first all-Ka-band Global Xpress broadband satellite was slated at press time to be launched Dec. 8, said Dec. 2 that Globecomm of the United States will be a value-added reseller of Global Xpress to governments in Africa and the Middle East.

London-based Inmarsat has a longstanding agreement with Boeing, which is building the four Global Xpress satellites, under which Boeing has committed to sell Global Xpress’ military and civil Ka-band capacity to the U.S. government.

The Boeing take-or-pay agreement extends to U.S. government customers wherever they are.

Hauppage, N.Y.-based Globecomm, a veteran satellite communications services and hardware provider that has just been purchased by private-equity investor Wasserstein & Co., is the latest services provider to choose between Inmarsat and a competing Ku-band capacity being fielded by Intelsat of Luxembourg and Washington.

“Globecomm is among the world’s leading providers of Ka-band services and our knowledge of Ka-band is second to none,” Globecomm Chief Operating Officer Keith A. Hall said in a Dec. 2 statement. “Having GX [Global Xpress] in our portfolio is a central part of our global government sales strategy.”

The first Global Xpress satellite is scheduled for launch aboard an International Launch Services Proton rocket from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Two more identical satellites are schedule for launch, also aboard Proton vehicles, in 2014 to give Global Xpress global coverage outside the polar regions. A fourth satellite, recently ordered from Boeing, will remain as a ground spare unless Inmarsat decides it is needed.

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Peter B. de Selding was the Paris Bureau Chief for SpaceNews.