Our History

Meteorcomm® History

Where We Come From:

Founded in 1975 and headquartered in the state of Washington ever since, Meteorcomm® has been a pioneer in wireless communications technology for multiple industries around the world. We started as a small consulting company that commercialized meteor burst communications as an effective and reliable alternative to satellite communications.

The technology was elegant. Relying on ionized meteor trails in the earth’s atmosphere, the communication system harnessed these trails to reflect radio frequency between two locations. We found that meteor burst communications was well suited for long-range, low data rate messaging across vehicles, locomotives, marine vessels, aircrafts, and even remote hydro-meteorological stations. That’s why Meteorcomm® technology was quickly adopted by a global customer base spanning every continent and multiple industries.

In the 1990s, we developed and patented Extended Line of Sight (ELOS) as a method to communicate real-time data up to 50 miles. We were able to achieve this extended range of communication by taking advantage of diffraction around the curvature of the earth, atmospheric diffraction, and tropospheric propagation.

Meteorcomm Today:

In the early 2000s, we began developing wireless communications applications for the rail industry, including HyRail monitoring, switch point monitoring, and PTC communications. When US government passed the Rail Safety Improvement Act (RSIA) in 2008 and we realized we could help railroads prevent some collisions, derailments, and other tragic accidents. But this communication solution would require industry-leading thinking to create a system that could be implemented across 70,000 miles of track that is traveled by nearly 50 railroads.

We are proud to say that only two years after the act was passed, the four largest US railroads agreed to adopt our communications technology as the foundation for a nationwide Positive Train Control (PTC) solution. Knowing that interoperability was critical to successful PTC operations due to the frequency of trains traveling on tracks owned by other railroads, we decided to create a system to meet the demand.

In order to do so, we developed the Interoperable Train Control Network (ITCnet®) platform as the communications solution for PTC. This reliable wireless communications and train control system has the unique ability to relay data across the nation’s entire rail infrastructure.

Meteorcomm® Tomorrow:

Always looking to the future, we have also developed train control solutions and tools that enable cost-effectiveness, data, and analytics for the rail industry. Stay tuned for what’s next.