Page 44: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2015)

MARINE COMMUNICATIONS “That’s the difference between our service and others – we’re sending a lot of live content continuously. So, in times when you are not in peak demand for your bandwidth, you have a lot of capacity available on your satellite network ... The MLC – making the crew happy part – it doesn’t interfere with ship’s business.” Jim Dodez, KVH SVP Marketing and Strategic Planning

CEO if it wouldn’t make more sense to go KVH & IP-MobileCast and operations, the service is predictably owner to our hubs, encoding it and set- with another service for everything else The news that KVH Industries was in- making its biggest splash on the crew’s ting up multicasting technology in a way and Maritime Broadband only for enter- creasing capacity on key South Ameri- side of the ledger. At the heart of it is that ensures the exact ? le gets to vessel, tainment. Kramer responds, “It wouldn’t can beams probably came as no surprise KVH’s ability to deliver fast broadband because if just digital rights ? le is incor- make sense to go for one, without the to industry analysts, who have watched service, with Internet download speeds rect, it won’t work correctly. And then, triple play.” Kramer clearly hopes she the ? rm’s market share increase to more up to 4 Mbps. And, through the use of we put the whole thing together into a can grow the ? rm’s innovative antenna than 4,000 units in the ? eld on its mini what Dodez calls ‘multicasting,’ high user interface so that a crewmember can and pricing plans into a bigger market. VSAT network. In fact, KVH’s mini- quality licensed content is being moved look at it with an iPad or similar device.”

Today, Maritime Broadband, she says, VSAT Broadband network is the domi- over a broadband pipe – inexpensively Along the way, KVH made two key enjoys its biggest penetration in both the nant player in the global maritime VSAT and quickly. acquisitions. First, Headland Media,

Baltic tanker and global bulk markets. market, with twice the market share of Dodez explains the concept, saying, which is now the UK-based KVH Media

To that end she says, “There is a lot of its closest competitor, according to a “We’ve done a phenomenal amount of group, specializes in obtaining commer- consolidation in our industry – we’ll see 2014 industry report by Euroconsult. work since we ? rst came up with this cially licensed content – which it has to where it shakes out. In any case, we are Nevertheless, KVH and its SVP Market- concept. The actual concept of multi- be on board commercial vessels. Dodez providing value here because the tramp ing and Strategic Planning, Jim Dodez, casting content to our customer base has adds, “MLC and port state inspectors nature of these markets makes global are hardly satis? ed with sitting back on been around since the beginning of our are going to be checking for these kinds coverage critical, especially for the bulk their laurels. mini VSAT broadband network. But we of things.” The second acquisition was market. We have no idea where our ships The new KVH IP-MobileCast is the had to set it up correctly – get the global Videotel, a provider of on board train- are going next and sometimes, neither do latest and most visible product of that coverage and technology in place. This ing solutions. That’s because, according they.” effort. Intended for both entertainment involved moving it from the content to Dodez, training will be an important part of its package. “Yes, you want to entertain them, you want to provide con- nectivity, provide communications. But, also provide training resources that they need.”

MultiCasting in Action

Instead of sending one movie individu- ally, KVH sends one movie to everyone within the satellite footprint at the same time. The old way might entail a request for a movie that takes up as much as 6gb of data. Sending that ? le a dozen times, says Dodez, is incredibly inef? cient.

He adds, “You can imagine 100 ? eets multiplied by 20 people, and what that would entail in terms of bandwidth. So, we send that 6gb ? le once to all vessels.

They all receive it and it is stored on the media server.”

Left: Diagram showing the available

Only those vessels subscribing to the options in the new KVH content deliv- service will be able to unlock the digital ery service.

rights however. The same applies to e-

Charts and training materials. The server

Top: Crew watching a coccer game.

knows which data is relevant to the ves-

Middle: The Tracphone VIP series.

sel, and discards the rest.

The broadcasts are sent continuously – sending, according to Dodez, as much 44 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • FEBRUARY 2015

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