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Production Operations and demand bandwidth while “There is inherent limitation offshore. “They expect to be able to of satellite networks. In IT we access social media, to watch the understand it. But business users video from their child’s birthday don’t. Explaining that to the party that they missed,” she says. operations side is tough. When Providing such access creates a they’re out there and want to do host of security issues, however. what they need to do, they don’t

Employees may attempt to care about that conversation. Their download illegal, copyrighted reality is that it is not working for material, or otherwise compromise them. They don’t care about latency the network. statistics,” Gauthier says.

“Anything that touches the Conducting offshore business in

Shell [corporate] network has to an international environment also follow our security procedures,” may pose additional problems in

Happel says. “We have to provide terms of regulatory challenges.

a modicum of ? ltering to mitigate As a rule, the level of bureaucratic corporate responsibility.” oversight is increasing globally, Shell uses a corporate network notes telecommunication attorney which has strict controls and Christian Hyde, director at Hyde & ? ltering and offers wireless internet Associates. “When you are using for employee and contractor. a transmitter you need a license

Initially, Happel says, Shell only – either the corporate user or provided protection on the wireless operator. For VSATs, it’s most often internet network from external the end user,” he notes.

denial of service attacks, but the Hyde recommends companies company later found that it had begin determining whether to provide additional ? ltering they need a license for offshore and logging to prevent people applications as soon as sites are from using bit torrent activity to identi? ed because it can take up potentially download copyrighted to six months to receive of? cial material. Published company policy approval in some areas of the world.

also reinforces that such illicit “There is no silver bullet. Don’t activity is subject to reprimand up waste your time looking for it,” to and including dismissal, he adds. Hyde says.

Despite the increased availability Despite the breadth and scope of of bandwidth, many companies still the technological improvements grapple with balancing business occurring in the offshore need for access with employee telecommunications sector, Shane demands for online access. Some Meche, telecommunications alter access availability based on consultant for TEK systems and time of day, opening the system for consulting full-time for a major oil increased worker communications company, predicts collaboration at the end of the work day and between IT and operations will be reserving the majority of bandwidth the most notable evolution as the for business use during hours of industry looks forward.

operation. “The work force is changing. We “We prioritize data streams on now have video feeds that work in networks. Someone doing crew a number of applications. We are e-mail is not going to get the best dealing with better technology that service as someone who is putting will allow us to be smarter about in a purchase request or addressing how we do things, limit the amount a drilling issue,” Wright says. of people onsite,” Meche says. “In Unreliable or insuf? cient the future the focus will shift to access for onsite personnel can determining what is critical, what cause major headaches for is not critical, and how to optimise business operation and drain how you operate within your worker morale. parameters.” oedigital.com February 2013 | OE 55 oe_oilcomms2.indd 55 31/01/2013 17:50