Category: Blog

For the last two years, Spain’s Albacora Group has been testing the marine satellite services system, the Fleetbroadband, on one of it’s tuna boats. Due to the success of these tests, the company has now spread this satellite technology across their entire fleet of vessels as they have come to realize how vital a role dependable communications plays at sea.

The captain and crew can now stay in touch with their families through email, facebook and skype via the marine satellite services system. Having a dependable satellite link makes all the difference in the world…it’s like having a floating office on the water. Albacora had been using the Fleet 77 and upgraded to an Inmarsat Fleetbroadband 250 terminal with potential broadband satellite data speeds up to 284Kbps. By the end of the year, Albacora will have 2 marine satellite services terminals on board each of it’s tuna boats, supply ships and refrigerated vessels.

The three main types of data communications via the marine satellite services terminal are oceanographic data, emails and the information specific to fishing. Albacora’s electronics department manager Ruben Mugira explains that Albacora’s boats fish in tropical waters for tuna and that fleetbroadband has broadened their scope of communications coverage.

As far as the administrative side of things, Ruben added that producing daily fishing reports (for the EU) has been seamless due to the presence of satellite internet onboard. The more information a captain has access to, the better the decsions being made. For instance, the vessels are able to view sea temperature, currents and winds for the best indication of where the fish are.

Inmarsat, the world’s leading provider of marine satellite services, recently announced the development of multi-satellite voice capability via the Fleet Broadband (FBB) terminals to delegates at Nor-Shipping in Oslo, Norway – one of the maritime industries biggest conference and exhibition events. Mariners will soon be able to access up to nine lines from a single FBB terminal enabling them to make up to nine simultaneous Voice calls from that one terminal

Planned for commercial roll-out in the last quarter of 2011, ths multi-voice capability will also be available on ALL new marine satellite services terminals as well.

“The power of the BGAN network that underpins FleetBroadband is that it has the flexibility and the capability to allow us to introduce new offerings such as this,” said James Collett, Inmarsat’s senior director of maritime business. “Ship owners and managers will be able to access up to nine telephone lines from a single terminal, allowing them to assign telephone lines for specific requirements, and to more easily separate the business and operational communications needs from those of the crew. Each line will have its own +870 telephone number. We believe this service will be particularly beneficial for crew communications,” Collett concludes.

At a suggested retail price of US$0.55 per minute, the cost of calls using this new service will highly competitive in the marketplace. The SRP applies to existing and new activations, and for both pre-paid and post-paid calls.

“We have announced this new SRP because we believe there remains an opportunity to grow both operational and crew voice traffic,” Collett goes on to say. “ We are seeing more use of email and data communications on the marine satellite services terminals, but there is evidence that shows people will call more when the price point is appropriate.”

With the help of a portable satellite internet device, archaeologists with the Valley of the Khans research team have been able to analyze crucial data virtually prior to organizing a ground excavation of the potential burial site of Genghis Khan. Members of the public were able to offer assistance with this expedition by helping researchers look through and spot GeoEye-1 satellite imagery of the area in and around Mongolia. The assistance of the public to act as virtual explorers, provided more eyes to sift through all the data using online tools available through the team website.

Every morning the archaeologists would download notes provided by the public explorers – then utilize this info to organize the search on the ground with the use of BGAN satellite and aerial imagery and geomagnetic testing such as ground penetrating radar and electro magnetometers. All this data was made possible for the researchers to access via the portableterminal.

Dr Albert Yu-Min Lin from the University of California, San Diego directed the expedition. “The expansion of our expedition would have been impossible without BGAN. The unit provided us with reliable voice and data connectivity in one of the world’s most remote regions. This helped us maintain the highest levels of safety and productivity while in the field.” The portable BGAN terminal was also used for blogging and sending photos as well as accessing medical analysis from the remote location.

With over 1 million visitors each year, Joshua Tree Nation Park is a popular sight for hikers, campers, bikers and backpackers. Containing portions of the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, the park spans across 800,000 acres.

Like many national parks, visitors to Joshua Tree frequently spend their time camping, climbing boulders and exploring trails – which consequently can lead to accidents and injuries throughout the park. Although park rangers patrol the park 24/7, with elevations in the park ranging from a low of 536 feet to a high of 5,814 feet, the mountainous terrain and remote location of the park allow for very limited cell phone reception, if any at all. In addition, given the size of the park, it is impossible for the rangers to be accessible to all areas at once. Joshua Tree park rangers needed a way to quickly respond to emergencies and communicate with visitors and other public safety personnel in a timely manner.

KR Nida Communications, a commercial radio dealer of interoperable products for public safety customers, realized the critical need for providing park goers with quick and easy access to the park rangers and emergency services.

Using the G2 mobile satellite radio transceiver unit, a solar panel and a battery, KR Nida modified a standard emergency call box phone so that visitors can make calls to emergency responders if they are in trouble. Callers simply lift the receiver and the phone auto dials the sheriff’s office, which in turn dispatches the information to the park rangers. The use of mobile satellite communications service ensures park visitors have a reliable comms method to contact public safety personnel.

“In an emergency situation, it’s critical to know that the call box will work and someone will be on the other end,” said Alberto Casanova, Operations Manager for KR Nida. “We chose to use the G2 Mobile Satellite Radio, because it is 100 percent reliable and provides us an added degree of certainty.”

Currently the park has one satellite-enabled emergency call box located in a heavy traffic area, with plans to install a second later in 2010. Because of KR Nida’s creative use of satellite technology, Joshua Tree’s park rangers now have a reliable and simple means of communicating with each other during an emergency and visitors have an added level of assurance that they can communicate with someone in the event of an emergency.

Inmarsat rolls out the latest Version 5 of the BGAN Launchpad Software. Versatile in that it can be used across all Land Portable, Land Mobile and FleetBroadband terminals, V5 boasts the following features:

A single combined application supports BGAN Land Portable, Land Mobile and FleetBroadband terminals.
Supports English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, French and Russian languages.
User can define (name) GPS Locations.
Language support for Fleet Broadband terminals. In addition to the above features, LaunchPad Version 5 enables the user to download and install, separate to the Launchpad itself, exclusive to Inmarsat TCP Accelerator software which significantly impacts and enhances the performance of TCP traffic in the outgoing direction.

We highly recommend users install LaunchPad Version 5 at their earliest opportunity. Click here to access new BGAN Launchpad Software

James Collett, the director of maritime business at Inmarsat says that whole new generations of modern mariners who grew up with the internet are now being recruited by vessel managers. It’s extremely vital that services like Fleetbroadband, cater to these tech savvy employee’s as they have come to expect a certain level of technology for communicating. Inmarsat is developing new pricing that will offer a wide array of options for providing web access for captain and crew as well as cost effective voice services so that those onboard will be able to communicate with loved ones and friends back on the mainland.

Inmarsat’s IsatPhone Pro hand held satellite telephone has been awarded the Pittman Innovation Award in the Electronics category. The Pittman Awards, sponsored by Sail magazine, recognize the most innovative products in the sailboat market. The IsatPhone Pro was selected as a 2011 winner for its affordability, design and general appeal and utility for both cruisers and racers.

“IsatPhone Pro is compact, easy to use and less expensive than other handheld satellite phones,” said Sail electronics Editor Ralph Naranjo. “As a transoceanic communicator, the unit represents one of the most cost-effective satellite communications alternatives on the market today. With its competitive pricing and dollar-per-minute usage fees, lsatPhone Pro is well worth a close look.”

Launched in the summer of 2010, IsatPhone Pro offers high-quality satellite telephony, text and email messaging. It is the most robust handheld satellite phone on the market today, offering the longest battery life, reliable global coverage, clear voice quality and ease of use – all at the most competitive price point in the market.

“We are honored to have received Sail’s Pittman Innovation Award for the IsatPhone Pro,” said Frank August, Inmarsat Maritime Director. “We always believed IsatPhone Pro would have tremendous appeal for the sailing community and we are very pleased with the enthusiasm and response from the market so far.”

Every competing yacht in the 2011 Volvo Ocean Race will carry an IsatPhone Pro.

Now any broadcaster from local news agencies up to CNN can transmit live data feeds from remote locations with the help of BGAN. There are cost effective solutions that range from just the talking heads with very little movement, to higher bandwidth applications that require more movement and to the premium services offered by BGAN X-Stream which provides HD type picture quality and can support 360 degrees of movement in the picture. Nothing is the industry of Mobile Satellite Communications supports faster broadband satellite data speeds than with BGAN X-Stream.

Inmarsat and their partners offer smaller broadcasters and freelancers with live video solutions in remote areas of the world to meet any budget. The new managed solutions are compatible with all BGAN IP streaming pricing and offer a wide range of potential combinations, making live video via BGAN the optimum choice for any news team. These solutions have been created to integrate with broadcasters’ current infrastructure. If the end user has no existing infrastructure, cost effective options are available as well.

Solution 1 is a streamlined version of the system used by leading networks to transmit live video via BGAN. With a 12-month subscription, end-users can either own or lease high-end encoding and decoding equipment. They can use their own infrastructure,(for example ISDN), lease a temporary line or use the internet to feed the live link back to headquarters. This set up esures great results and the technical aspect has been kept as simple as possible.

Solution 2 is a simpler, post paid or pay-as-you-go version of solution 1, with an even greater control of costs. Contracts are month to month, so there is no long-term subscription. The end users in the field use a free encoder, while decoding takes place on the solution provider’s server,so the customer has no need to buy, or hire, hardware.

Solution 3 leverages the Content Delivery Networks of Inmarsat distribution partners for a low cost, end-to-end supervised solution for live video transmissions. This option can be leased on a monthly basis, includes a free software encoder/decoder, and is billed as part of the user’s per-minute BGAN streaming cost.

LightSquared’s proposal outlined a three-part solution for resolving GPS interference issues involving GPS devices, detailed in recommendations filed at the FCC June 30. GPS device test results, which were also filed at the FCC, show unequivocally that the interference is caused by the GPS device manufacturer’s decision during the past eight years to design products that depend on using spectrum assigned to other FCC licensees, the report said.

“The GPS device manufacturers, unlike relevant government agencies, have been largely uninterested in finding a win-win solution,” said a LightSquared statement. “Rather, their only answer to a problem of their own making is to demand that the government simply block LightSquared from using the company’s own spectrum … This is a problem that the GPS industry could have avoided by equipping their devices over the last several years with filters that cost as little as 5 cents each.”

The testing results released show LightSquared’s proposed solution resolves interference for about 99.5 percent of all commercial GPS devices – including 100 percent of the 300 million GPS-enabled cell phones, the company said. LightSquared said issues remain with precision GPS devices, and it is committed to finding a solution.

“This issue will be resolved by good data, smart engineers and good-faith problem solving dialog,’ said Sanjiv Ahuja, LightSquared chairman and CEO. “The end-result will be continuity for the reliable and safe GPS system we have come to depend on, along with a new high-speed wireless network that will provide huge benefits to consumers.”

LightSquared officials said they need the cooperation of the GPS industry. “LightSquared believes cooperation is the least to expect from an industry that built a business by piggy-backing on the federal government’s GPS network without any investment in infrastructure or spectrum,” a statement said. A recent Brattle Group study, funded by LightSquared, showed that the commercial GPS industry’s ability to use the U.S. government’s GPS network amounts to an $18 billion federal subsidy.

This article originated here

Captain Sig Hansen and crew of the poplular reality show “The Deadliest Catch” utilize Inmarsat’s Fleetbroadband high speed satellite terminal out at sea. Never before have the crew of the Northwestern had such instant access to communication. All on board are able to speak as often as they like to family and friends back on the mainland when terrestrial connectivity isn’t feasible. The guys also have access to high speed internet and email capability 24/7. According to Sig however, the priorities on the Northwestern are work, sleep and eating so this doesn’t leave a lot of time for other activities but having Fleetbroadband on board provides a peace of mind for the crew that at least the communications options are available.

More importantly, should a member of the crew have an accident which according to Sig, occasionally happens as they use knives on board for different purposes. Should someone get cut, they have immediate access to doctors back on the mainland that can assess the situation. They can actually show the wounds via skype and/or photos they upload and send via data transfer to the doctor who then offer solutions remotely. Never before has technology played more of an important role for crew welfare and saftely on a vessel hundreds of miles offshore.. according to Sig. Fleetbroadband makes this possible.

Check out the video below