VSAT Inmarsat Cost Threshold

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Arnfinn Oksavik on April 10, 2008 at 8:43

I think there are many answers to this question, since the cost of inmarsat communication limits the usage people are willing to pay for. I have had some experience though where there is a dramatic increase in the monthly cost due to perhaps an event in the homeland of the crew, cutting deep into the crews payout.

Also the fact that a ship can operate as a normal business unit counts in the equation, as opposed to being a 'remote' satellite with a delay of perhaps 24-48 hours on e-mail exchange and a limit of a few kbytes per e-mail attachment. On a broadband connection you typically get telephone lines as an office extention to the land based swithcboard, calling the ship at any time at a normal rate. This greatly increases the communication volume since the cost is nearly fixed.

Permalink Reply by Efthymios Chaldeakis on October 8, 2008 at 9:09

Hi Emil,
A bit late responce but I guess this question will be in the spotlight for the moths to come.
In hard currency and comparing it with F77 operation, there should be a threshold reached when a vessel exchanges around 50-60MB of data per month. Of course this is in pure e-mail exchange. The most important though cost factor is the telephone costs. Taking under consideration that ship-to-office and vice-versa calling costs are included in the fixed monthly fee (VoIP connection makes calling the vessel free) the office-to-vessel costs have to be included in the equation.
Talking about a C-Band VSAT service the 128kbps would be enough if you have a guarrantied CR. This will get you 3-4 concurrent phone lines and a comfortable bandwidth for e-mail facilitation an simple browsing.
At any case though an on-board mail agent with strong compression is highly recommended! Also a cashed web browsing would save enough bandwidth to allow smooth operation of all services.

Permalink Reply by Wasim Kayani on November 9, 2009 at 21:42

With VSAT costs dropping, its an extremely difficult one to answer.
Forgetting throughput and costs for a minute...if you want quick, easy and an almost 100% global coverage solution, then Inmarsat is probably the key winner. Great reviews and most importantly, global service network with cheap hardware costs/installations. If you want an unlimited data option with multiple phone lines, then VSAT is probably the better choice BUT you would need to understand your traffic routes to ensure you can provide the connectivity (unless you went C-Band).
We are currently looking at the VSAT Market but our requirements are different but to answer your question, you need to understand exact data requirements. Get this right, then it should make the decision simple. I am a fan of VSAT but I am also aware that "one size does not fit all".