The planned installations will commence immediately on Frontline’s existing fleet and continue throughout 2012 on the transportation company’s planned new ships.

   Inmarsat XpressLink aims to provide vessels with access to both Ku-band VSAT and L-band FleetBroadband services in a bundled package. The service includes a guaranteed free upgrade to the 50Mbps capability of Inmarsat’s Ka-band Global Xpress constellation when the service becomes operational in 2013.

   “We evaluated the providers and made a purely commercial decision about XpressLink from Inmarsat. The choice was made after a year of positive experience with VSAT from Ship Equip,” Frontline Manager Kjell Langva said in a statement. “The cost-benefit profile and the unmatched failover capability, which offers unlimited usage on Inmarsat FleetBroadband, was key to the decision. Also Inmarsat’s ability to deliver made up the additional element in making the choice.”

   Financial details of the contract were not disclosed.