Satellite Costs News

The commercial shipping world can benefit from greater range of communications and reduced satellite costs. Domestic brown water operators know all too well that’s easier said; than done. Until now.In the fast moving world of blue water, deep draft shipping, the availability of reliable ship-to-shore communications has been a non-issue for at least two decades. More than ever, they need it. These longtime users of so-called ship management software and now, sophisticated remote monitoring systems that watch over even the most obscure minutia on board far flung 1,000 foot ocean liners, need (and get) robust and reliable communications.On the domestic, brown water side of the equation? Not so much.

Danelec Marine’s new intelligent remote management platform is bringing the Internet of Things (IoT) to the maritime industry by providing easy, low-cost access to data from ships at sea. The second-generation DanelecConnect telematics platform is now fully available and the first ship installations are currently underway. The company is working with third-party software application providers to use the DanelecConnect application programming interface (API) tool to capture data from shipboard systems and sensors into their specialized software packages.

Maritime Information Systems AS (MARIS) has signed an important agreement with Seagull AS covering cooperation on product specific ECDIS training at Seagull’s shore-based training center in Norway. The agreement  between the two Norwegian maritime industry specialists marks the latest initiative by MARIS to develop a standard training package by assimilating information on leading training  centres and approaching those in the ECDIS training business to offer cooperation and market MARIS’ products and services. “Our strategy is to identify crucial safety and environmental issues facing the hazardous cargo sector and develop and publish recommended criteria that will serve as benchmarks for the industry,” said Steinar Gundersen, Deputy Chief Executive (Corporate), MARIS AS.

Xantic announced the launch of Easy Accelerator, an application designed to make browsing the internet via satellite faster and cheaper than ever before. Available free of charge from Xantic’s website, Easy Accelerator optimizes internet and intranet usage by reducing the size of the selected web page content. A proxy computer located at a Land Earth Station ‘downsizes’ pictures, for example, by up to 80 percent, depending on the settings chosen. Audio files and text can also be reduced. As a result, browsing is much faster and the user’s satellite costs can be decreased by as much as 90 percent. Inmarsat has co-financed the development of this new service.