SeaMobile Wins NOAA Contracts

SeaMobile Enterprises connectivity been awarded two major contracts by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). SeaMobile has signed a three-year contract to provide global VSAT satellite services to the entire fleet of ships operated by NOAA throughout the globe. SeaMobile has also been awarded the integration, installation, operations and maintenance of a 3.7m VSAT terminal system for the new NOAA ship, Okeanos Explorer. NOAA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce and conducts environmental research and serves as the primary source of expert information on weather data, forecasts, warnings and climate change.

SeaMobile will provide up to 21 ships in the NOAA fleet with voice and data access as a critical link while the ships are on research missions at sea. SeaMobile’s DirectNet service is a fully managed maritime telecommunications service enabling the transparent extension of NOAA’s network from all its terrestrial locations to the fleet of ships.

DirectNet enables broadband connectivity between the ships and the NOAA headquarters so that environmental scientists can interact in real-time with ships at sea. NOAA will have the ability to conduct voice calls, large data transfers and video conferencing simultaneously while operating in the northern Alaska, Pacific and Atlantic Ocean regions.

The Okeanos Explorer is a converted US Navy T-AGOS ship that is the first US Government vessel dedicated to exploring unknown parts of the ocean. SeaMobile will assemble, integrate and install a Seatel 3.7 meter VSAT terminal capable of HDTV and high speed data transmission from any ocean region in the world.

SeaMobile had currently provided service to nine NOAA ships on a month-to-month basis. The new contract covers all ships under a long-term commitment.

“These are two very gratifying wins for SeaMobile,” said Bill Harrington, Vice President of Operations & Government Systems for SeaMobile. “To be trusted by an organization as critical as NOAA is a great endorsement of the reliability of our turnkey VSAT satellite services and the round-the-clock customer support we provide. We are honored by the confidence that NOAA has placed in SeaMobile.”

SeaMobile provides service to a significant number of government entities, including the Military Sealift Command, the US Navy, the US Air Force, and DISA.