Maritime Safety Data Service News

The role of Inmarsat as sole provider of satellite technology performing to Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) standards is set for advancement, after an IMO Sub Committee decided to greenlight consideration of both FleetBroadband and Fleet One for formal approval. To date, Inmarsat is the only company which has received approval from the International Maritime Organization to provide the GMDSS data and messaging communications on which mariners rely in the last resort, currently via Inmarsat C and Fleet 77 services.

Supported by European Space Agency (ESA) funding, Inmarsat’s forthcoming Maritime Safety Data Service (MSDS) for FleetBroadband, delivers an increased data capability over the Inmarsat-4 network, including the Alphasat satellite, providing global coverage and the same reliability of over 99.9 per cent associated with the Inmarsat network. MSDS will continue to offer distress alerting, priority messaging and SafetyNET safety information broadcasts, but also deliver greater data capability than is currently available with Inmarsat C safety services. *All data accessed over MSDS to be captured and stored at new servers. Peter Blackhurst…