Xantic Enables P&O Nedlloyd to Upgrade at Low Cost

P&O Nedlloyd Container Line is the world's third largest container shipping company, operating 157 vessels, a cumulative 407,000 tons on 84 routes with 235 direct call ports. With a fleet this massive and the growing need to communicate with ships, P&O Nedlloyd was expecting an increase in the volume of data transfers to and from its vessels. In addition to email, it wanted the ability to send and receive electronic updates of navigational charts and file transfers for ship management applications.

As it was investigating ways to reduce costs, it also considered updating its existing Inmarsat -A terminals, which forced it to consider: costs involving this project should not exceed the current operational costs; the solution should involve minimal or no additional investment; any costs incurred should be included within existing operational expenses.

Xantic proposed a turnkey solution based on the hardware and a lease construction. This involved the Inmarsat -A terminals installed on 23 vessels being replaced by Inmarsat Fleet 77 terminals.

The migration to Inmarsat Fleet 77 terminals provides P&O Nedlloyd with an increased connection speed of 64 kbit/s. By combining it with Xantic's AmosConnect transaction speeds are now six times faster than was previously the case. Moreover, the Fleet 77/AmosConnect combination is also highly economical. AmosConnect offers P&O Nedlloyd substantial cost savings thanks to the integration of email traffic, fax traffic and file transfer,

In deciding to upgrade its vessels' satellite terminals to Fleet 77, P&O Nedlloyd was looking for a partner that could provide a complete package of services, including airtime, hardware lease and solutions. To meet this requirement, Xantic teamed up with Thrane & Thrane distributor Holland Nautic. The migration package offered to P&O Nedlloyd included a full operational lease for all hardware. This financial construction meant no initial investment was required for the hardware, making the upgrade easily affordable.

The first Fleet 77 terminal to replace an Inmarsat -A terminal has been installed on the P&O Nedlloyd vessel Peninsular Bay. The total installation, including cabling, fixing the antenna and the below-deck unit, and configuring the AmosConnect software, took less than four hours.