Navigation standards slammed - Tanker Operator

p1-5.qxd 09/05/2006 09:18 Page 3
Better customer experience driving satcoms market
As the Satellite Communications market
begins to grow, it is improved customer
experience that is driving ever greater
end-user adoption.
Greg Tees, general manager, Globalstar
Europe, explained how new applications
and service quality improvements - from
mobile phone-like voice quality,
to rapidly improving data
services for the provision of
real-time weather information,
to cost-effective email -
is pushing rapid adoption.
The satcoms industry is
moving full steam ahead,
with renewed interest in this
market driving the innovation
of new applications.
Enhanced services and more
cost effective airtime rates are
generating enthusiasm from
a business standpoint,
fuelling the rapid uptake in
satcoms in the maritime community
in particular. New
data applications are providing
seafarers with vital
weather and ocean information,
which has enhanced
their ability to make informed
decisions - resulting in
greater business productivity
and improved on board safety.
These benefits will continue
to drive adoption of satcoms
services and will provide
software developers
with the impetus required to
continue finding innovative
solutions for this sector.
Voice quality is now standard
in fixed line and GSMbased
mobile communications,
but for many years satcoms
users had suffered the
latency associated with high
earth orbit satellites, resulting
in poor voice quality and
hugely expensive airtime
costs. However, the new generation
of advanced low
earth orbit satellites offered
superior voice quality - the
equal of that attainable on
mobile phones - together
with minimal latency, eliminating
echoes and delays.
Just as the move from analogue
to digital sparked the
mobile phone revolution, as
will the move to optimal
voice quality in satcoms. The
end user, of course, is the
greatest beneficiary, now
being able to access a telephony
service that is superior in
a market where costs are
actually falling.
It's not just voice that is
driving adoption, however.
Data services are of equal
importance. Indeed, e-mail
has often been dubbed the
'killer app' of the internet
world; the one application
that has universal appeal and
drives users to take up new
services. This is indeed the
case for tanker operators, who have been
utilising internet services at sea to access
e-mail, giving them both a competitive
edge and allowing crew to stay in touch
with friends, colleagues and family.
The recent introduction of enhanced
applications such as OCENS Mail and
other software, when connected through a
satellite phone service, are now allowing e-
mail to be compressed and delivered reliably
- for a constant yet cost effective application
- available to the whole market.
Previously, e-mail designed for the high
speed, unlimited bandwidth wired world
TANKER
Operator
was largely unsuitable for constrained
wireless services, which is where built-in
compression in applications like OCENS
really work for seafarers, claimed Tees.
Perhaps of even more crucial importance
to the maritime industry is fast,
accurate, real-time weather information.
Once the preserve of the few, mass-market
cost effective weather information is now
continued on page 4
TankerOperator May/June 2006 page 3