Communications Towers News

Though water covers more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, businesses engaged in marine shipping operations and logistics, and other businesses that manufacture and ship product still have a lot of ground to cover getting their various goods to their final destinations. The ocean marine insurance market, the oldest insurance market in the world, was initially developed to protect these goods while crossing the ocean’s open waters, later to morph into a product to protect all international transportation regardless of mode.

On April 28, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved the Cape Wind renewable energy project on federal submerged lands in Nantucket Sound, but will require the developer of the $1b wind farm to agree to additional binding measures to minimize the potential adverse impacts of construction and operation of the facility. “After careful consideration of all the concerns expressed during the lengthy review and consultation process and thorough analyses of the many factors involved, I find that the public benefits weigh in favor of approving the Cape Wind project at the Horseshoe Shoal location,” Salazar said in an announcement at the State House in Boston. The Cape Wind project would be the first wind farm on the U.S.

NCL Corporation will be the first cruise line to bring passengers on North American cruises the ability to use their cell phones even when communications towers are oceans away. The company is providing the innovative new offering through Wireless Maritime Services, a joint venture of AT&T Wireless and Maritime Telecommunications Network (MTN). Leading the way in shipboard technology, NCL pioneered the industry's first Internet access on the high seas with its Internet cafe in 1999. In 2002, NCL became the first cruise line to provide remote wireless Internet (also known as Wi-Fi) to its guests. Both services are now standard throughout NCL's entire fleet. "Cutting-edge onboard technology is important to our guests," said Colin Veitch, NCL's president and CEO.

MariTEL, the nation's leading provider of VHF marine wireless telecommunications, finalized an agreement with American Tower Corp. to develop a 250-300 tower network. American Tower owns and operates approximately 3,200 wireless communications towers in 44 states. The new towers, which are to be built according to MariTEL's specifications, will serve as the physical backbone of the MariNET, the marine wireless local loop. Under the agreement, American Tower will construct or place MariTEL on tower sites as the anchor tenant. The towers will be sited along the coastal and inland waterways of the U.S.