Iridium OpenPort completes successful sea trials

Iridium reports that its new-generation global marine satellite communication system, Iridium OpenPort, has successfully completed sea trials on a number of different vessels, and worldwide commercial rollout is now underway.

“The feedback from beta test platforms has been overwhelmingly positive, and we have a strong backlog of orders from shipowners who recognize the unique value proposition of Iridium OpenPort,” said Don Thoma, executive vice president, Marketing, Iridium. “In the current economic climate, shipowners are looking for ways to trim operating costs for ships at sea, and Iridium OpenPort offers a very cost-effective alternative to other broadband satellite systems in terms of hardware, installation and monthly usage costs,” Thoma added.

Thoma noted that Iridium OpenPort is the only truly global high-bandwidth marine satellite communication system, with coverage over 100 percent of the Earth’s surface, including Polar waters beyond the reach of geostationary satellites.

Frank Coles, President and CEO of Globe Wireless, an Iridium Service Provider, said, “We have conducted exhaustive testing of Iridium OpenPort systems, and we have successful tests on customer ships. The pilot testing we have done showed that the OpenPort system was capable of handing a large volume of data and provided quality voice services. We are now rolling out systems to our customer’s ships, who are seeing significant reductions in voice and data costs.”

Zodiac Shipping Agencies Ltd., one of the first shipping companies to sign up for Iridium OpenPort, conducted sea trials on two ships in collaboration with Iridium Service Provider, AND Group. The vessels are currently using AND Group’s Rapidomail for crew and ship’s e-mail. The installations will soon be upgraded to AND’s IPSignature package, which offers Internet browsing, company intranet, instant messaging and other functions as well as e-mail, according to Ian Robinson, managing director of AND Group. A Zodiac spokesperson said, “We believe Iridium OpenPort will be a very cost-effective solution for voice and data communications and will produce significant savings in operating costs.” Zodiac expects to move forward with more installations across its 125-ship fleet in the coming year.

Peter Dohle Schiffahrts-KG conducted extensive sea trials with an Iridium OpenPort unit on a 1600 teu containership under a service agreement with Vizada, another Iridium Service Provider. Michael Dittmer, fleet IT and communication coordinator for Peter Dohle Schiffahrts-KG, reported that he was “… very happy with the service,” which fulfilled his expectations. He expects to install the Iridium OpenPort units on other ships in the Peter Dohle fleet in the near future. “Before implementing this plan fully we need to wait for the full results from the tests, but this is definitely the direction we want to head in, because we completely trust the service,” said Dittmer. “The voice quality is 100 percent perfect.”

Introduced in mid-2008, Iridium OpenPort provides three independent phone lines and a separate scalable data circuit supporting speeds of 9.6 to 128 kilobytes per second. Data rates can easily be adjusted up or down without any modifications to hardware or software. The low-profile, lightweight antenna array does not require a stabilized pedestal and is therefore less costly to purchase, install and maintain.