Page 77: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2012)

August 2012www.marinelink.com 77Globe Wireless is a leading player in providing communications, operational and IT solutions to the maritime industry. Earlier this summer at Posidonia 2012 inAthens the company announced that it would launches its latest software release, R6 for Globe iFusion in July 2012; a freeupgrade to all existing users. While soft- ware enhancements and upgrades are commonplace across the IT community, this one is significant for a number of rea- sons, according to Mark Witsaman, CTO, Globe Wireless. ?This particular one (software upgrade) is a pretty big leap,? said Witsaman. ?Globe Wireless has been one of the trail- blazers in putting GSM on commercialships, but GSM has one drawback: You have to have a GSM phone to use it, and if you?re In port and it?s switched off for security reasons, you can?t use it. What we?ve done is extended this to the fixed lines on the ships, using the mariner?s GSM pin code. This is a massive advan- tage, particularly on the billing end of theservice. The call will be charged to the in- dividual mariner?s personal account, so the ship owner does not even see that on their bill.? The software will feature the following enhancements: A Fixed-Multiple Voice solution for Fleet Broadband: There is not a lotof them out there. INMARSAT has just introduced this, but with them it?s only one number. We can map multiple num- bers, multiple accounts, said Witsaman. VSAT Auto-Recovery Tools , or ameans to more rapidly recover the VSAT, with active monitoring built. According to Witsaman, on many occasions the iFu- sion box can actually fix the problem and help recover the system without any ac- tion from shore.R6 for Globe iFusion takes the existing GlobeMobile multiple voice lines, cur- rently on over 1000 FB vessels, using it as a VoIP solution. This enables multiple calls using Globe?s unique Digital Qual- ity Voice (DQV) technology ? which is very high-quality voice that Witsaman says will sound better than a standard call? on both the GSM and VoIP phones over a standard FB terminal. In this release, the Globe iFusionFixed-Multiple Voice solution allows up to five inbound and outbound calls over DQV, while the standard circuit switched voice line remains free at all time for the captain?s use or for emergencies, which is a Globe Wireless pioneering element. One of key features of Fixed-Multiple Voice is the ability to assign international phone numbers from over 60 countries to each phone line onboard reducing thecost to call the ship from shore as no 870number is required. Customers who have offices in the UK, Singapore, or Italy, for example, can have a local in-country number that will berouted to the vessel and the vessel will be charged the same rate as if they were making the call from ship to shore. R6 forGlobe iFusion will support up to 8 VoIP handsets onboard the vessel and POTs handset plugged directly into the i250.Each handset is configured from shore via Globe iPortalallowing a simple name to be assigned, an international inboundnumber if requested, PIN codes to restrictoutbound calls, and split billing for sub-accounts. PINs can be created as needed eitherfleet wide or per ship. Even pre-pay PINS may be used that are independentor tied to a GlobeMobile GSM account.In the case of a chartered vessel the char- terer would have a unique PIN and all calls will be billed under a sub-accountin the customers invoice each month. According to Witsaman, there are two primary factors driving IT and maritime communications use onboard commer- cial vessels today. ?Ships are becoming more sophisti-cated, and with broadband more widelyavailable to the ships, the IT departments are finding new ways to take advantage of it. It used to be all email, but increas- ingly vessel owners are looking at remote processes and access.? Another driver, according to Witsaman, is the fact that crews are are demanding to be more connected. ?A lot of the fea- tures we offer (such as GSM service) is aimed toward that? Key VSAT Back-up and Reovery R6 for Globe iFusion contains addi-tional VSAT features developed to keep VSAT terminals online, requiring less backup L-Band usage. Automated scripts monitor the VSAT system and will at- tempt to auto-recover the system with no intervention by technicians or crew. If auto-recovery does not work the Globe iFusion, via L-Band backup, allows the Globe Wireless VSAT technician remote access to all the core components andsystems onboard. ?This new feature assures the customer that over 95% of all outages are recov- ered remotely. We have found that for every one vessel that does require a visit another 20-25 vessels are brought back online remotely,? said Brad Rogers, Di- rector, VSAT Engineering. He went on to say ?With our live monitoring, typically within one hour of any outage, our engi- neers are already online checking the sys-tem and coverage.? In ongoing efforts to help vessel owners monitor and contain communicationcosts, R6 for Globe iFusionwill also in-cludes a pre-paid and sponsored emailsolution. Via Globe iPortal, customers can set up sponsored monthly quotaswith message size limits, allowing the customer to control how much, spon- sored email the crew can use. These set- tings can be configured fleet wide or specific for each crew member allowing officers more usage for example or as a bonus for good work. The pre-paid account can be tied to thecrew members GlobeMobile GSM ac- count allowing them to share the pre-paid balance between GSM calls, pre-paidFixed-Multiple Voice, email and SMS. Crew members will be able to pick up any Fixed-Multiple Voice handsets, enter a PIN and password and pay the same rate as the GlobeMobile service. If a crew member has a GlobeMobile number and uses a Fixed-Multiple Voice line, the end user on shore will see theGlobeMobile number on their phone asthe caller ID rather than the vessels phone number. If there is no GlobeMobile num- ber associated with the crew member then no number is displayed. These fea- tures will be available on VSAT and FB terminals.www.globewireless.com Globe Wireless R6 for Globe iFusion Launched at Posidonia?Ships are becoming more sophisticated, and with broad- band more widely available to the ships, the IT departments are finding new ways to take advantage.? MR#8 (74-81):MR Template 8/13/2012 10:07 AM Page 77