Page 42: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2015)

MARINE COMMUNICATIONS

Broadband Bandwidth Battles

As Satellite providers battle for market share, the onboard struggle to ef? ciently maximize bandwidth allocation is also being solved.

he requirement to monitoring ceive data and information. Even as the represents years of research and devel- seafarers, the cost and logistics of deliv- critical equipment and at the advent of the Maritime Labor Conven- opment in partnership with shipowners, ering that data to the vessel has shipown- same time satisfy the increas- tion (MLC) sends operators scrambling says Maritime Broadband CEO Mary ers worried. Maritime Broadband ad-

Tingly sophisticated demands to ? nd ways to keep their best people on Ellen Kramer. dresses the quandary with its own menu of today’s seafarers all need to be bal- their vessels, at the same time, perfor- “Maritime Broadband has only been of high quality broadcast television that anced against the cost of bandwidth. The mance and ef? ciency efforts have placed in business since 2008. Really, in truth, includes, for example, such channels as call for both ‘big data’ and the full range greater demand on the ability to move we’re nowhere near the top of the mar- CNN or MSNBC, and a 24-hour sports of crew connectivity and entertainment critical data quickly and cheaply be- ket share list. We’ve spent the majority channel. What’s different from other is upon the shipping industry. SatCom tween ship and shore. The marketplace of our time developing our solution and providers is that the entertainment sys- providers have responded in a big way, says it can be done. Maritime Reporter honing it. Our solution is a combination tem comes in through the same antenna, but the myriad choices available to ship- & Engineering News, with the help of – you might call it a triple play, in es- but uses separate, high quality multi-cast owners and operators can be confusing, industry insiders, explains how. sence – and we’re providing the hard- bandwidth. In this case, subscriptions for complicated and needlessly expensive. ware as well, so it is a turnkey package the internet remain separate.

Arguably, the biggest problem with Maritime Broadband’s Triple Play with a proprietary C Band antenna called selecting a maritime communications Although Maritime Broadband isn’t C-bird. This comes with an internet sub- Separating Business & Pleasure provider in today’s market is that no the biggest or best known maritime scription that can be taken at various lev- Maritime Broadband uses the same two providers do business in the same communications provider, the engineer- els of committed information rate.” The satellite provider (MTN) that provides way. Some own the satellites and sell ing company’s VSAT communication way that all of that is packaged – and the multi-cast television to cruise ships. packages or bandwidth, some rent the systems for maritime use are quickly price point that it comes at – is, accord- Kramer explains, “This is all broadcast bandwidth and sell hardware, some use getting noticed in a market sector that ing to Kramer, what sets her ? rm apart. television, meaning that it is live, so a network of contract service and sales tends to gravitate towards more famil- As the task of providing crew enter- we’re not using IP bandwidth for the providers and still others do it all. iar names that have been around a lot tainment and connectivity becomes a television. It’s high quality video that’s

The new wrinkle in the process is the longer. The New York-based company’s necessary line item cost in an increas- being sent to all subscribing ships via differences in which some send and re- ? agship product, the C-Bird antenna, ingly competitive market for quality MTN’s network. It is simply a matter of whether the customer is a subscriber or not and we can turn it on, if so. One bandwidth is for internet traf? c only and the other for broadcast television. It’s the same antenna. That’s a beautiful thing because the customer does not have to purchase a ‘receive only’ television an- tenna. Data and broadcast TV are com- ing through the same device using sepa- rate bandwidth.”

Each company has to make the deci- sion of how to set up its business and to ? nd out where their competitive edge lies. For Maritime Broadband, the com- petitive edge lies in the antenna itself.

According to Kramer, companies can enjoy true global coverage using an af- fordable C-Band option for commercial ships from 70°N to 70°S, with unlimited data. According to Kramer, companies can enjoy true global coverage using an affordable C-Band option for com- mercial ships from 70°N to 70°S, with unlimited data. “That’s a magical com- bination for ships. There are a number of frequency bands in our maritime world and the most well known service is pro- vided on L-band. Also a 70-to-70 model, 42 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • FEBRUARY 2015

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