FleetBroadband, VSAT, Iridium OpenPort - has shipping finally reached the high-speed IP era?

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Permalink Reply by Pietro Amorusi on March 3, 2008 at 13:35

Good questions; I guess that the broadband and the 24/7 fixed price connection can change any concept of on board IT.
We can now (and we do it)
- take the control from shore to manage and fix IT systems
- use IP telephony at no cost
- create centralized monitoring systems
- provide shore systems availability to on board people
- ...

...but what about users' discipline?

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Permalink Reply by Michel Rieken on March 3, 2008 at 15:15

The shipping industry is indeed in the Broadband era.
Some parts have been there for quite a while already,
but finally requests for Broadband are comming from all parts of the maritime industry.
Stratos can offer WorldWide broadband communications via het OceanVSAT service.

For details see: http://www.stratosglobal.com/aboutStratos/page-aboutStratos_newsroo...

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Permalink Reply by Thomas Mueller on March 4, 2008 at 12:59

yes, the industry is heading into a new era.

most fleets today are acting with an IT & communications infrastructure we have seen on shore in the late 80's or such.

with the former and existing "bridge only" single user/system aproach, the mindset is that the use is very limited for the cost that appears per minute or per megabyte. thus, as we all have learned what always on DSL for a cheap flatrate means to our all lives and business, it is clear that this is the request from the global marine community for the use on the vessel as well.

and the industry has started it's marketing machines to provide all kinds of global coverage, semi-global coverage, multi-region-coverage, broadband, highspeed, always on, near always on and many busszords more. we do need to make sure to not screw up the customer with ever new buzzwords and features like the IT industry is likely to do.

customers are looking for an easy, secure and reliable service without the need to have a huge it team to handle all kind of the new risc such as firewalling, spam, viruses, malware coming from the use of IP and internet services. They also want to have the fleet transparently integrated into their on shore it but do not want to handle hundreds of VPN connections themself.

also, they are mainly looking for a calculatable and predictable pricing of such services like volume based or unlimited flatrates on shore today.

in the past, many disperate, heterogeneous and proprietary systems have been in place for dedicated jobs increasing investments, cost of service and maintenance etc. however, customers today are inrerested in a more integrated aproach.

this are some of the main concerns our customers raised in a VDR survey we did last year and this is also our experience in working with our customers.

thus, the umc.global network provides universal marine communication services using wireless broadband access in up to 80+ ports worldwide, 2GSM and 3GSM worldwide coverage near shore and in all other ports without any roaming surcharge as well as the full integration of any existing or upcoming satellite service. the umc.global network fully automated selects the best possible communications link based on availiability and cost and includes many managed services such as the entire security, firewall, tunneling, vpn, content synchronisation, application optimization etc. it actually triples the bandwidth of existing narrow band satellite links.

for the customer it is very easy to operate since we will do the implementation, maintenance and service incl. all features and functions on a flatrate global service fee.

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Permalink Reply by Youri Hart on March 4, 2008 at 14:00

The real question you should ask is: Do you want broadband on your vessels?
It is exactly what Pietro is writing: But what about users discipline?

Everyone wants low prices for the communication costs but are the seafearers ready for highspeed connections or should they do there own work?

I agree that broadband can bring a lot of improvement making the vessel an extension of the office. But it comes with a create risk. In our offices we have well trained engineers that know when virus outbreakes are there firewalls are failing etc. But onboard how do we have? In the last 6 months we have installed our Antivirus system and on every vessel viruses where active slowing down all the pc's with broadband this will be even bigger. Offcourse if you deliver a good network with good security this shouldn't be a problem however we all know that applications need to be installed when the vessel is sailing who is going to do that? (login via terminal services?)

I think it should be greate to have broadband onboard against low prices. However seashipping company's must realise that they need to invest in the IT hardware onboard and that they can't afford to place a simple pc, they need to create a small infrastructure for the vessels IT network.

Companies like Stratos and Vizada should realise that Broadband with no limit will make there own products like AmosConnect and SkyFile useless. Why use a "tool" if you can use the office Exchange server?

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Permalink Reply by Thomas Mueller on March 4, 2008 at 14:29

Youri, i very much apreciate your reply and your are absolutely correct with your comments. I fully agree to that since it is our experience as well. On the other hand, exactly this has been the reason to establish the umc.global network providing managed services for all this kind of stuff. it containes fully managed and distributed firewalls on shore and vessel, automated and integrated antivirus, antimalware, antispam services etc. the vessel itself will never be in the internet but in our own private mpls network using a secure tunnel on top.

also the communication to the backoffices for an entire fleet is handled in one single VPN connection. furthermore, with umc.connect thin office we do provide a total infrastructure for applicatilons of all kind, operating on a highly reliable and redundant server system, bugt using dumb thin clients as the front end. Thus, no single point of failure any more and more reliability. The systems are almost virus avoidant and if the thin crashes, you just replace it or restart it and it will boot from server.

however, your are right with the users discipline. when are they doing what? what downloads, what picture uploads etc. are done from the crew. for this, the managed service is able to centrally restrict access based on a user or group policy base as well. also, the customer just mentiones what the need is and we will setup the system accordingly.

thus, the lack of it ressources on land and especially on board is taken care with this zero administration aproach.

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Permalink Reply by Christos Papalas on May 29, 2008 at 15:59

Hi Youri ,
I agree with your points but I beleive that onboard broadband will allow us to control more and more systems and restore operation remotely and more sufficient .

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Permalink Reply by Gary McDonald on March 5, 2008 at 13:32

I have been working in the shipping industry for a number of years now, specialising in data communications. One of the big problems I have seen is the use of the word “broadband”. Immediately users think they are going to see xDSL speeds they get at home, but in the real world it’s just not the case. Take a look at the F55/F77 MPDS solution, I have spoken to shipping companies who installed these terminals, used the MDPS channel for the first month then quickly dropped the service when they saw the costs involved because someone thought it was a good idea to leave windows update running!

Ends users hear about solutions like Inmarsat Fleet broadband and VSAT and buy into the idea that all of their problems will be solved, but unless you spend time to plan your “broadband” solution carefully and are willing to invest in new hardware and training, you can end up with nothing but out of pocket and a nice new white antenna dome to look at!

These new “broadband” solutions appearing on the market will offer excellent opportunities to bring some IP applications from the office to the fleet, but in my experience the task is not as easy as the sales reps like to make out.

Gary McDonald

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Permalink Reply by Youri Hart on March 5, 2008 at 13:40

As you know Gary we are in the same type of service delivering to our customers. And I agree with you that the word broadband is used in the wrong way. Do we call ISDN @ home Broadband? No we don't! Why is it then that the word broadband is used in the Maritime industry? Just to have a new service with a name that is familiar to us all? In the Netherlands the words "broadband internet" may only be used if the line speed is above 1Mb or 100Kb that is more then 15 times the maximum speed of a "broadband" fleet installation (not the 128KB).

Sales reps always say it is very easy to implement but sometimes they don't have any idea what is going on onboard.

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Permalink Reply by Torsten Ecks on March 5, 2008 at 20:50

I would say shipping has reached a considerably high.speed IP era but speed and bandwith can not be compared to on shore possibilities of course.
The challenge is to streamline both sides now, the communication systems on the one hand and the software we want to use or sell on the other, to try to get the most out of it with todays available options.
We are living in a world where these options still vary a lot depending on where you are in this very moment but
I am sure we will very soon identify many chances for all parties concerned.

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Permalink Reply by Remon van Gijn on March 5, 2008 at 22:45

Would it not be optimal to inspect the client requirements? To evaluate the actual use of a typical vessel data connection? The current Value Added Systems will be required for at least 10 years more, current installed F77's provide max 128k bandwith which is fine for burstdata but not for all the 'broadband' software created landside. Having contributed personally in the development of Amos Connect in my former position for instance provided the insight that vessel and vessel crew can pretty much do fine with current solutions.

Its the maturity of the services provided and the price that's holding back the self development of personal and business-intelligence applications over the available connection options. Having 'broadband' onboard is a means, not a goal.

Would you think the average shipover has the vision to invest in more then he needs now because he simply can ? Would an upgradable system (bandwith subscriptions) be a solution?

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Permalink Reply by Stein Terje Skaar on March 6, 2008 at 11:54

Yes, client requirements/needs must always be driver #1.
However, it is always good to discuss solutions when the client has a ITC strategy to base their requirements on. At the same time, other drivers may also be as important ,like crew welfare. Feed-back from many ship owners says it is hard to get the best seafarers without offering internet access to the crew.
We also see the requirements may vary from vessel to vessel within the same company, based on trade, demand from charterers etc. Hence it is important to be able to offer "customized" solutions to the ship owner including VSAT, Inmarsat and Iridium.

"Everybody" would indeed like Always ON-Fixed Price, but the cost of VSAT is a heavy step for many companies, especially those not involved in the Oil and Gas Industry. I think it will still take some time untill we see "Broadband" solutions on the majority of deep sea vessels. Economy of scale is, and will be a major issue when discussing satellite communication solutions with the clients.
And I am convinced there there will be a market for a variety of communication solutions, again based on different needs and requirements..

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Permalink Reply by Emil Regard on April 17, 2008 at 14:22

Remon - Very good points. Can you please clarify what you meant by "the current Value Added Systems will be required for at least 10 year"? What systems are you referring to? Also, can you expand on your comment about the "maturity of the services? Thanks!

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