Comms move closer to the one-stop-shop

The maritime industry has become more and more demanding when it comes to high volume telephony, data, e-mail and internet communications. This, coupled with a demand to reduce prices has seen a number of players in the market merging in recent years to offer a one-stop shop.

Xantic, a previous joining of SpecTec and Station 12 is again expanding its services by offering VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) services through an alliance with Maritime Telecommunications Network (MTN).

Xantic will market and distribute MTN?s Maritime VSAT services to the global maritime markets and MTN will expand its global teleport network capabilities through the addition of Xantic?s Land Earth Station of Burum in The Netherlands.

Xantic?s Burum facility will offer Ku-band and C-band capabilities, delivering voice, data, and Internet termination services, with all services being able to be terminated via MTN?s North American hubs. Xantic will also offer a wide range of value added services over VSAT such as internet cafes, payphones, newspaper services and Hot Spot (Wifi) Wireless Internet Access.

“This agreement offers MTN the ability to expand our global product and services utilising the excellent facilities at Burum while expanding our sales and distribution capabilities through Xantic?s network of 35 offices worldwide,” says Bradford Briggs, senior vice-president of MTN.

“The addition of maritime VSAT services extends our portfolio enabling us to cover our customer?s needs in the broadest sense,” says Ronald Spithout, ceo of Xantic. “This agreement with MTN again confirms our strategy to build partnerships in order to strengthen our position in the market.”

Another move has seen an agreement between SailorNews Services and Rydex to allow seafarers to remain conveniently in touch with their families, and remain abreast with happenings at home and the rest of the world via its BBS (Bulletin Board Service).

SailorNews is a news provider to seafarers aboard and, under the terms of the agreement, will provide news exclusively to the clients of Rydex.

Rydex, part of the Inmarsat Ventures group currently provides ship-shore communications software and services to ships worldwide.

SailorNews currently provides news from 23 countries such as China, Croatia, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Norway, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States, Ukraine and Venezuela.

Norwegian telecom equipment supplier Nera and Spanish Satellite service provider Hispasat have signed a contract for the establishment of a new broadband satellite IP network.

From its 30 deg. West orbital position near the Brazilian coastline, the Hispasat satellites provide broadcasting and data services for the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas. The new SatLink System will be used to offer new broadband IP services in Spain, Portugal and North and South America.

With the Nera DVB-RCS SatLink System, Hispasat will be able to offer cost-effective networking for low-rate services as well as bandwidth-intensive applications, such as digital media streaming, video, broadcasting, multicasting over IP and high-speed file transfer. The Nera SatLink terminal receives through a broadband digital video broadcasting (DVB) outbound channel of up to 60 Mbps and provides satellite return channels with demand assigned bit rates of up to 2 Mbps.

“There is growing interest worldwide for IP-centric applications. Nera is pleased that Hispasat, with its strong market position in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, has chosen to base its services in this important market segment on our products,” says Kjell Nohr, president of Nera Broadband Satellite, fully owned subsidiary of Nera. “Nera decided early on to focus on DVB-RCS products because we saw that this could provide customers with very efficient and affordable broadband solutions. Since DVB-RCS is an open standard for two-way communication over satellite, service providers have a choice of equipment from different vendors.

Nera will cooperate with several vendors of DVB-RCS equipment to ensure interoperability between different systems, adds Nohr: “It is very promising that the standard now is gaining foothold, and we strongly believe that both suppliers and customers will benefit from a widely agreed standard.”

P&O gets T&T upgrade

In deciding to upgrade its container fleet 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 request, Xantic teamed up with Thrane & Thrane distributor Holland Nautic to provide a genuine turnkey solution.

The package offered to P&O Nedlloyd included a full operational lease for all hardware, which meant no initial investment to make the upgrade eminently affordable.

Thrane & Thrane?s Capsat Fleet 77 will be supplied to 27 ships through the company?s Dutch distributor Holland Nautic

The first Capsat Fleet77 terminal has already been installed on the vessel

P&O Nedlloyd Peninsular Bay