KVH Ships 7,000th mini-VSAT Broadband System
KVH Industries, Inc. has shipped more than 7,000 mini-VSAT Broadbandsm systems, designed and manufactured by KVH to provide mobile connectivity at sea. The TracPhone V-series satellite communications antenna systems are currently in use on everything from small recreational sailboats cruising the coastline to 1,000-foot commercial freighters transiting the world’s oceans.
KVH launched the mini-VSAT Broadband service in July 2007, and has seen the popularity of the service grow, coinciding with an overall trend in the maritime industry toward increased reliance on broadband connectivity.
As recently as September 2016, industry analyst Northern Sky Research reported that KVH’s mini-VSAT Broadband customers account for 29 percent of the vessels using Ku-band service. This market share continues to be supported by customer wins from commercial maritime operators.
“Our mini-VSAT Broadband network is robust and fully global, and we are thrilled that thousands of our TracPhone V-series antenna systems are already in service around the world,” said Martin Kits van Heyningen, KVH’s CEO. “Our continuing dominance in the VSAT market is testimony to our heritage of innovation. It’s even more exciting to look ahead to how we can augment our existing network and enable KVH to support the dramatic surge in demand for data that the shipping industry is projected to experience over the next 10 years.”
KVH’s TracPhone antenna systems include the TracPhone V11-IP, a 1.1 meter diameter, dual-mode C/Ku-band antenna for global VSAT connectivity; the TracPhone V7-IP, a 60 cm diameter enterprise-grade antenna for Ku-band service worldwide; and the TracPhone V3-IP, a 37 cm diameter Ku-band ultra-compact maritime VSAT antenna. All three TracPhone V-IP systems feature the Integrated CommBox Modem (ICM), a streamlined belowdecks unit that replaces the need for a rack full of components and integrates all antenna control, onboard network management, and modem functions in one small box. The ICM also receives onboard news, entertainment and operations content sent via KVH’s IP-MobileCast content delivery service.
KVH launched the mini-VSAT Broadband service with a commitment to provide fast, affordable satellite Internet and phone services via compact antennas. In 2012 – five years after the network’s launch – industry reports found that mini-VSAT Broadband was the market share leader in maritime VSAT, a position KVH has retained consistently in subsequent industry reports.
The company is currently focused on enhancing its mini-VSAT Broadband network with new high throughput satellite (HTS) capacity that will provide higher speed Internet services to customers.
