Demand for fast and reliable connectivity at sea is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’. For maritime users, it’s a necessity and underpins their daily operations offering benefits such as crew welfare services and safety features.
In a notoriously challenging environment such as maritime, we know only too well the challenges associated with creating a stable connectivity environment. With our technology partner, Eutelsat, we have watched the need for connectivity at sea increase. With the powerful EUTELSAT 10B satellite now ready for service, Eutelsat has further solved this connectivity challenge adding hundreds of additional carriers serviced by its ADVANCE global network solution, the foundation of which is ST Engineering iDirect’s advanced mobility technology and the Dialog platform.
Providing powerful, extensive coverage for primarily maritime services around the world, Eutelsat ADVANCE Maritime is a global solution dedicated to the maritime sector that offers total flexibility on industrial bandwidth requirements while providing guaranteed performance, customized service and SLAs for high-end vessels. Today, it’s the only solution that provides full regional coverage, with a unique, flexible commercial approach, making operations possible for a greater range of service providers worldwide.
Several operators have already selected Eutelsat ADVANCE to enhance their portfolios of connectivity services. Leveraging Eutelsat’s powerful fleet of Ku-band satellites, Eutelsat ADVANCE is integrated into their offerings to serve a wide range of maritime market segments, including merchant shipping, passenger ferries, cruises and offshore operations.
ADVANCE is not solely a maritime service. It can be translated across different sectors providing critical connectivity for enterprise such as oil and gas, energy and mining; aviation and telcos – all areas that are experiencing significant growth in demand for reliable satellite services. As early as 2012, Eutelsat and ST Engineering iDirect partnered to deliver regional managed VSAT services, which have grown from fixed to mobile, and regional to global over the last few years.
With the addition of the new, powerful and innovative payload, the satellite at the 10° East, is providing expansion for services in North Atlantic corridor, Europe, Mediterranean Basin and Middle East.
Powerful Partnership
Eutelsat recognized that its ADVANCE solution would require an innovative ground platform and turned to ST Engineering iDirect for its proven advanced mobility. Eutelsat required the ability to cater for higher ship-to-shore upload speeds, lower jitter and latency, and higher throughput so that maritime service providers could see instant gains without replacing their existing antenna systems – a costly and involved task.
The ST Engineering iDirect Dialog platform and award-winning return waveform technology, Mx-DMA MRC® offer service providers a level of efficiency, scalability and performance combined in a single return link. This way, customers get these state-of-the-art capabilities today along with the assurance of investment protection with ST Engineering iDirect’s selection of forward-compatible modems designed for multi-platform use. This paves the way for new ground stations that will operate on next-generation HTS satellites such as EUTELSAT 10B.
Key Features…Impressive Results
Let’s take a deeper dive into the key features of the Eutelsat ADVANCE Maritime solution, powered by Dialog, and see how real-life customers are benefiting.
1. Remote Connectivity is Assured: No matter how remote the location, for those operating at sea, every kind of data requirement must be met. Along with overlapping satellite beams and the Dialog platform’s Automatic Beam Switching capability, ships can connect with different beams with no manual intervention, resulting in reduced downtime. The Dialog platform offers high-quality links, even at the beam edge, as well as more throughput per watt of antenna power.
Result
Telenor Maritime keeps the sailing ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl constantly connected during its worldwide research mission.
“The Statsraad Lehmkuhl needs to be constantly connected – while it’s at sea or docking into one of the 36 different ports around the world. It’s a challenge that most connectivity solutions could not overcome alone. Hybrid connectivity was the only solution, combining many different backhaul sources into one powerful connectivity platform. Additionally, the large amount of bandwidth required by its sensors and research apparatus would demand a generous budget and dedicated support. With ADVANCE, we can adjust our bandwidth and performance requirements as needed, bringing unprecedented cost-efficiency to remote satellite communications.”
2. Ultimate Flexibility for Today and Tomorrow
Service providers must have access to a flexible offering that can fluctuate with the needs of its customers whether that’s seasonal or volume-based. To this end, Eutelsat ADVANCE Maritime can scale up or down as demand changes and doesn’t lock customers into long-term contracts, enabling them to use it on-demand and with an interface that allows the direct provisioning of ships. Utilizing the Dialog platform enables quick upgrades on the fly so that offshore vessels can rely on higher speeds for their missions.
Result
ADVANCE Maritime partner focuses on immediate client needs and reduces risk with short-term contracts.
An ADVANCE Maritime partner has been using the flexible Eutelsat service to run short-term upgrades on vessels more smoothly. Now, upgrades can be performed directly via the interface, taking just a few minutes rather than several days. The short-term contract scheme also allows them to reduce engagement risk and focus on the effective bandwidth demand time for the shipping company.
3. Ship-to-Shore Capability
The global offshore industry is in constant need of connectivity that will connect its offshore assets to its onshore headquarters. And it’s not just for operational efficiency; the industry has also become increasingly aware of the importance of crew welfare. Sustainability is also a key priority for offshore companies and autonomous control systems are playing an increasing role, but this all requires bandwidth to manage operations and relay data to and from the field. This demands intelligent traffic management without the price tag of replacing existing technology.
The Dialog return waveform equips users with greater two-way communications links and higher throughput. It is the most efficient waveform available which makes each return link more cost-effective. This is vital for bandwidth-hungry markets such as offshore, where reliable ship-to-shore communications are essential to run video conferencing, voice calls, IoT applications and more.
Result
Universal Satcom delivers unprecedented stability for symmetrical offshore needs including communications, Internet and crew welfare.
“The Dialog return technology has helped us run speed levels from ship to shore with unprecedented stability. Where previous providers which were offering SLA and service at CIR claimed to be reached 99%+, the ships on Dialog effectively reached this level of speed in return. The benefit for the customer was improved stability for VoIP and other sensitive applications. This performance gives our clients peace of mind when it comes to their communication links during operations and also improves the crew user experience.” – Ms. Reema Omari, CEO
4. Enhancing Two-Way Connectivity with Lower Latency
Digitalization is transforming the industry for the better, but it demands reliable on-board communications. This will help to drive up the efficiency of management systems and save both time and money. It’s also critical to avoid problems with latency and jitter to give smooth experiences on video conferencing applications, for example.
Dialog’s return waveform lowers latency and jitter. It supports greater symmetry for a range of data requirements which is key for many applications in the marine environment. Eutelsat ADVANCE users will experience better two-way video communications and with higher delivered throughput, customers can see an instant improvement in performance without having to replace their existing antenna systems.
Result
Nearshore Networks reduces latency for crew welfare and connectivity during navigation onboard passenger vessels.
“We have experienced a significant reduction in latency in the network. Previously, networks were often reaching 850 ms and above. The Dialog based service has brought us to 600 ms sharp. This is a big difference. It allows our demanding offshore customer to run voice calls, video, operational apps more smoothly. Latency sensitive applications such as real-time monitoring of well flows and fuel consumption will see a notable improvement. The result is reduced involvement from our support team and increased SLA performance.”
Prepared For the Future
To discover more about Eutelsat ADVANCE, please read on here.