Multi-orbit network concept. Photo: Intelsat

As data requirements for maritime operators continue to grow, maritime operators are looking for more capability in their communications solutions. Across maritime operations in commercial shipping, fishing, and even cruise, ships need improved efficiency and safety, and look to the benefits of more autonomous operations.

These changes are an opening for satellite connectivity to better serve the maritime industry and meet its connectivity needs. Mike McNally, director of Maritime Products for Intelsat, spoke with Via Satellite about how Intelsat is designing its maritime offerings to meet the needs of its customers and bring them the benefits of multi-orbit connectivity in a cost-efficient way.

VIA SATELLITE: What is Intelsat doing to meet the changing demands of maritime operators in shipboard communications?

 McNally: The demands of the maritime operator for shipboard communications has developed very rapidly over the last few years. It has been changing for decades, but in the last few years, it has changed more rapidly; the requirement to exchange more data, more reliably, more economically. There is an old adage to have things better, faster, cheaper and you can only pick two, but you can’t have all three. In this case they need all three — better, faster, and cheaper. For this reason, our maritime team at Intelsat has been busy innovating great new ways to incorporate new services into our FlexMaritime offerings, combining services that use different networks and multiple orbits to enhance reliability and performance all in the most economical way possible.

Mike McNally, director, Maritime Products, Intelsat

VIA SATELLITE: What is it about a multi-orbit communications solution that appeals to the maritime customers today?

McNally: When we see any new solution that promises greater speed and lower prices, everyone is drawn to it. It is something you want to have. It offers improvements that you have never seen available before with Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). As ships begin to rely on these new services, they find there are times when the service is unavailable or underperforming. They can also find these services can be over-used and create unexpected high invoices. These ships typically have a VSAT solution on board as well, and if they have a FlexMaritime solution, they know this has been a very reliable solution for years. Putting together a solution that combines the multi-orbit benefits of LEO and Geostationary (GEO) networks is the best way to ensure the vessel has what it needs, whenever it needs, and can control costs effectively.

VIA SATELLITE: Why is it valuable to a maritime operator to have more than one high-capacity service on board?

McNally: Let’s look back at the maritime industry. If you look at ship-to-shore communications, at first it was just radio. You needed to have multiple frequencies that were using multiple antennas to back up what you were doing. You could not rely on any single source. There was high frequency (HF), medium frequency (MF), and very high frequency (VHF), etc. backing each other up. When satellite communications entered the picture, you had a need to upgrade that backup, so it could keep up with the new requirements that came along. You had things like telex, email, and then data transfer. There was Sat-C and data over HF radio backing up the data over Sat-A and Sat-B over satellite – these all backed each other up.

These days the data requirements are continuing to grow. Ships send Gbps of data when these used to use Mbps of data. There was time when we were using Kbps at sea. Slower L-band services like Iridium’s Fleet Broadband can no longer cut it as the backup. The ship needs the capability of VSAT along with the LEO services they are putting on board, so when these new speedy services are unavailable, a ship’s business can continue without any impact, and it has the capacity to move the Gbps that are required.

VIA SATELLITE: Can you give some examples of the real-time benefits?  

McNally: More and more, ships are looking for enhanced automation, making the automation on the ship available for review, and making sure everything is running as economically as possible, and environmentally- friendly as possible. There is also this environmental reporting that is required. All of this points to gathering more data from the ship than ever before. Much of that is real-time data. So, you need to have the ability to have a real connection to the ship, much more than was ever necessary in the past.

VIA SATELLITE: How are the needs for commercial fishing vessels different than cargo vessels?

McNally: There are similarities between cargo and fishing vessels, but commercial shipping covers a much broader spectrum. When you get down to catcher vessels with small numbers of crew that are busy all the time, they don’t have a lot of time for surfing the internet. But they do have requirements for regulatory reporting, and they do need to stay connected with their management office telling them what type of fish they are catching and staying in touch with home to a degree. All of these can be done with lower bandwidth capabilities such as L-band, but they can be done much more cost-effectively while broadening their ability for communication with a multi-orbit solution. Especially with an advanced multi-orbit flat panel antenna which we will be offering next year, this will be a game-changer.

Now, you look at the larger ‘processor’ vessels – they have all the requirements of the smaller vessels, but they have more crew with more time on their hands because they work between shifts, and they want to communicate with home. So, that is where you need to have a full scale VSAT and LEO combination to serve them best.

Photo: Intelsat

VIA SATELLITE: The commercial fishing industry is an interesting one. What are some examples of how a multi-orbit offering can have direct benefits to companies here?

McNally: Maritime operators, including fishing operators, need to have multiple sources of communication. They cannot rely on just one. The amount of capacity that is needed has grown. So, you need to have at least two ways of doing that to be safe, three if you can manage it. Why? Because things don’t always continue working all the time on a vessel. Especially when you are looking at smaller vessels. If you watch ‘Deadliest Catch’ for example, it can get rough out there. They need to always stay connected.

VIA SATELLITE: What impact does multi-orbit have in terms of safety and security?

McNally: When it comes to safety and security, there is this old saying about wearing a belt and braces. There are two ways to hold up your pants. Safety and security require redundant systems. Since the beginning of ship-to-shore communications, they have always needed to have more than one way of making that connection. Once you start to have a reliance of communicating with the shore, you need to be able to keep that going. For safety and reliability issues, that is paramount.

VIA SATELLITE: How are the crew impacted by having increased connectivity available?

McNally: They are very happy to have that extra capability. When the crew gets hold of this service, they gobble it up. They want to use it as much as they can. Very few people would have thought you could tear through a TB of data as quickly as they can. It gets partitioned and they can only have a certain amount of data. Many run out of the data allowance early in the month. They don’t get to the end of the month. They can get unhappy about it. It could really upset a maritime operator that has spent all this money putting connectivity on board, bringing on a new type of airtime that has a new expense line item, and the crew is unhappy because they are running out of capacity. We are addressing this with crew welfare solutions that don’t consume a lot of bandwidth. We have a new live Crew TV service, and our partners will offer this in a way that doesn’t draw down on their available data capacity. Not everything is a matter of streaming it on your phone. Sometimes it is better to have the crew sitting together and sharing a live TV experience.

VIA SATELLITE: In the case of crews using so much data so quickly, is it a case that ships are using much more data than they originally thought, and need a different approach to connectivity going forward?

McNally: The operations and IT departments of the shipping companies know what they are going to need from an operations standpoint. They know what type of systems they are building. They know what type of data they are capturing. They can see that. What was the big surprise for everybody was just how much the crew could use. The fact that they can consume it so quickly. The operations and IT people know what they need.

VIA SATELLITE: With all the choices out there with LEO, MEO and GEO, how can a maritime operator know they are making the right choice? 

McNally: Technology will continue to change, it has changed so much over the last few years. People will ask where is it going? Am I making the right choice? The constant that maritime operators can count on is working with trusted maritime service providers. As you may know, we don’t go to the maritime industry verticals  directly. We are fortunate to have a select group of solution partners that have the best reputations in the industry. They know their customers. They use our products to put together the right services to meet those customer needs. We are building out a range of multi-orbit and multi-network products at the request of our solution partners who are echoing the needs of the industry. This gives us the confidence to invest in these developments, and ultimately the maritime operators can trust the solutions they are being offered. 

VIA SATELLITE: In the competitive environment, do you believe your customers have a good understanding of the benefits between a multi-orbit solution and single orbit solution?

McNally: I have been to a few of the partners’ holiday parties and had an opportunity to talk to end users. So, yes, I think they are a pretty savvy bunch. They know what it takes to provide the types of solutions that their ships need. Again, because they take the advice of our solutions partners, they are well-informed. 

VIA SATELLITE: What is the big challenge to increased adoption of a multi-orbit solution?

McNally: The alternative would be just to go with one solution. There are still plenty of ships out there using L-band. Not everyone is going to adapt to the latest technology right away. Many operators still use VSAT as their primary and they are very happy with what it does for them. They can control their costs, and they know what they are getting. They might take a LEO system on just for the crew, but I think more and more, the operators are recognizing that the blend of these two services provides better solutions for the operations, crew, and the vessel.

As we move closer and closer to autonomous vessels, and I believe we will go through a long period of semi-autonomous vessels, these types of connections are absolutely essential. Having multiple orbits makes it more reliable and economical.

The investment in multi-orbit and multi-network solutions is really what the industry needs and we are going to continue to do that. We have an extraordinarily reliable FlexMaritime network on VSAT. We are expanding that network to be multi-platform and multi-orbit through our partnership with Eutelsat OneWeb. We are always listening. We want to hear what the segment needs, and any opportunity I have to discuss with end users, I will take. We are going to events like Nor-Shipping where we can talk to customers directly. Our solution partners then take that information and turn it into solutions that meet the needs of their customers.