Digital Ship

SATCOMSVSAT at Spliethoff –Fair Service for a Fair PriceSpliethoff Group of the Netherlands is currently in the process of rolling out a new VSAT communications networkaboard its ships, having conducted an extensive vendor review to make sure that the company was gettingthe best possible value for its investment. Peter Van de Venne, Spliethoff, told Digital Ship about the processAt the end of 2010 the AmsterdambasedSpliethoff Group, thelargest shipowner in the Netherlands,announced a deal to expand the useof VSAT across its fleet, signing a threeyearcontract with Radio Holland coveringan initial 16 vessels, and potentiallyexpanding to 50 ships.Under the deal Radio Holland, as partof the Imtech Marine group of companies,was tasked with managing the introductionand installation of the entire network,including hardware, airtime and maintenanceof the onboard systems.Now, after approximately six monthssince the beginning of the implementationproject, Spliethoff is running RadioHolland’s Ku-band service on 13 vessels,with eight more in the process of beingupgraded.With the fleet also using KVH’s mini-VSAT service on another of its shipsSpliethoff will soon have a significantnumber of its vessels running with VSATservices installed.The major driver for the company in itsdecision to embark on this project has beento offer improved services to its crews,while also opening up additional opportunitieson the operational side, by increasingits usage of satellite communications.However, with the trend in data trafficonly likely to continue upwards in thefuture, Peter Van de Venne, director of ITfor Spliethoff, decided that a change in satcomservices was required – and that thecompany would look to obtain a “fairservice for a fair price.”To introduce the kind of functionalitieshe had in mind Mr Van de Venne quicklycame to the conclusion that Spliethoffwould have to look at moving to a VSATsolution, with satcom bills likely to escalateto an unmanageable level if operatedon a pay-per-use basis.“VSAT Ku-band is the only system currentlyon the market where you can obtainreasonable speed for an always-on internetconnection at a high but manageableprice,” he told us.“It provides our crew the much appreciatedinternet access and on the businessside it speeds up communication (not havingto wait for e-mail exchanges a few timesper day), and gives captains access to relevantonline information like port and cargodetails. It also gives our vessel supportengineers the ability to provide remotesupport by directly taking over PCs.”“During a pilot, we found out that ourvessels were ‘burning up’ about 10-15 GBper month each. That would translate intoa lot of US dollars when paying per use, aswith FleetBroadband or F77, and we didnot want to wait for the, at the time noteven officially announced, Inmarsat Kabandsatellites.”Selection processSpliethoff conducted an extensive selectionprocess to choose a new partner toprovide its Ku-band connectivity, withone of the key criteria being the availabilityof coverage on a near-worldwide basis,to be able to meet the demands of the company’sglobally trading fleet.“When we started with our first pilot,suppliers only had bandwidth availableon a few satellites and the AutomaticBeam Switching (ABS) was not easy tooperate and sometimes faltered,” notedMr Van de Venne.“The ABS issue is now available frommost providers however, and also coveragehas been improved.”Despite this, Mr Van de Venne doesnote that VSAT is still not a truly globalservice, and that Spliethoff will continueto maintain its installations of a variety ofInmarsat services on its ships in tandemwith the VSAT installations.“Still there are several areas, like theIndian Ocean for example, that are notfully covered,” he said. “This is why wekeep FleetBroadband (or F77) as backup.”“Before VSAT, we were and are stillusing FleetBroadband, F77 and Sat-C.Before that we also used mini-M, and Sat-B and Sat-A.”Another important aspect of the selectionprocess for Spliethoff was maintainingflexibility in the hardware it installed,Digital Ship June/July 2011 page 14so the decision was taken to use equipmentthat would be widely compatiblerather than implementing a proprietarysolution.“We decided to select an antenna(choosing one from Sea Tel in the end) thatis used or allowed by multiple airtimeproviders,” said Mr Van de Venne.“This gives us, in principle, freedom toswitch airtime provider if needed. Healthycompetition is always good for consumers.”In the end, after having proven its abilityto provide Ku-band services underthese conditions, Radio Holland won theVSAT contract with Spliethoff, helped inno small part by the fact that the companieshad already had a successful existingrelationship.‘During a pilot we found out that our vessels were burning up 10-15 GB per month each’– Peter Van de Venne, SpliethoffAs part of Imtech Marine, RadioHolland was able to offer a range of technologysystems relevant to the vesselinfrastructure, and could act as a systemsintegrator across the whole ship.“Radio Holland has been providing uswith communication equipment for a longtime,” said Mr Van de Venne.“Our positive experience with RadioHolland, their nearby presence andof course a competitive deal for bothequipment and airtime added up to ourdecision.”“We currently have 512 kbps which allvessels share. We will probably increase thebandwidth as time progresses. Hopefullythe prices of the airtime will go down overtime, so it will still be manageable.”For its part, Radio Holland was keen totake on the challenge of building a privatenetwork for Spliethoff, with separateaccess for different users, that would beseamlessly accessible on a worldwidebasis, as Rob Verkuil, manager, RadioHolland Connect, notes.“For this network we worked togetherwith Spliethoff to realize the setup for avery profound IT configuration. The challengefor Radio Holland was that the providedVSAT connection had to cover mostof the global sailing networks of theirbusiness,” he told us.“The Connectivity Solution of RadioHolland offers the worldwide VSAT Kubandnetwork with automatic beamswitching. As part of the Radio HollandConnectivity Solution we deliver aFleetBroadband terminal as an alternativesolution in the regions where VSAT doeshave less coverage. In this way the connectionto shore is always secured.”“The Radio Holland network capacityhad to be sufficient for voice calls, businessapplications for remote support ande-mail traffic. Also Spliethoff requiredDutch phone numbers and voice billingflexibility to their end users by a end userportal – our end user portal gives flexibilityand clear insight in their network trafficand voice administration.”Spliethoff has been working with RadioHolland to push the reporting capabilitiesof the system even further, and expects tosoon implement a daily transfer ofdetailed call records (via e-mail or ftp),which can be forwarded to the vessel andused to properly charge the crew for theiractual communications usage before theyleave the ship.One specific aspect of the contract thatSpliethoff has been happy with has beenthe inclusion of an agreement whereby thecosts of the backup system incurred duringVSAT downtime or time out of coveragecan be used to reduce the monthly feepaid – a direct example of the idea of a“fair service for a fair price.”“During our pilot we managed toobtain coverage guarantees from our airtimeproviders,” said Mr Van de Venne.“That is why an out of coverage compensationwas highly appreciated. I hopethat this trend continues.”Network installationInstallation of the systems onboardSpliethoff’s ships has also included theintroduction of separate networks for differenttypes of use, completely segregatingcrew and business access.These networks were implemented onthe vessels by Radio Holland, based on theguidelines provided by Spliethoff’s IT team.“We have split the network on board