Caprock Communications Corp. continues to boost its presence in the maritime industry, most recently through a new alliance with Seamobile announced Oct. 18.

The initial thrust of this service centers on providing passengers and crews on cruise ships as well as crews of transoceanic vessels the ability to use GSM cell phones to send and receive calls.

“Caprock is providing the satellite link to the vessel as well as all the onboard wireline communications,” David Myers, vice president of marketing and product management, told Satellite News. “We would be providing data services for local area networks for computers, Internet access, secure corporate data access for the cruise line or the commercial shipping line as well as the traditional telephone lines, all over the satellite link. Seamobile is providing all the equipment and services associated with onboard wireless so that you can walk on a cruise ship and use your normal cell phone just like you were roaming off-network in the United States.”

In addition to wireless voice services, Myers added that Seamobile will provide Wi-Fi wireless local area network access to passengers and crew.

Keeping Passengers Informed

While the value of bringing your own cellphone on a cruise ship fits in with the anytime-anywhere connectivity that society has come to expect with the proliferation of wireless technology, Myers noted that the service delivers other communications opportunities to keep passengers connected.

“Part of the value proposition that we are offering, especially to the cruise lines, is the ability for the cruise ship to communicate directly with their passengers while onboard through their own cellphones,” Myers said. For example, if a group has a dinner reservation at 8 p.m. at the restaurant on the Promenade Deck, the crew can send a text message directly to a cellphone to alert the passengers that their table is ready. Staff also can promote other events such as a cocktail party or planned recreation activities.

“It takes the cellphone model to the next level like you are seeing in the terrestrial world, but it takes it onboard the vessels as well,” Myers said.

A Significant Market Opportunity

While Myers declined to comment on how much revenue Caprock expects to earn from this alliance or what percentage this alliance will contribute to Caprock’s overall revenues, he noted that Caprock has “committed a lot of resources and energy and effort to the maritime industry through things like this partnership. [The maritime industry] is an area of focus for us for the next couple of years.”

Myers did offer some perspective on the opportunity that Caprock is looking to exploit. “The cruise industry is fairly large in terms of potential passengers or users for this kind of a service,” Myers said. “There are about 300 or so large-scale cruise ships worldwide (such as those operated by Carnival Cruise Line International that carry more than 1,000 passengers), and there are a couple of hundred smaller cruise ships that are 100 passengers or less.”

Additionally, there are a significant number of transoceanic vessels that are targets for this service. “There are about 30,000 large-scale transoceanic vessels worldwide,” Myers noted. “Probably about 15,000 of those vessels are good candidates for broadband-type services like this. For example, if you have a large crew on a container ship that is moving across the ocean and you want to track all the cargo onboard, you can use wireless PDAs or wireless cellphone-type devices to communicate on the vessel and back to shore for customs purposed and manifest tracking and [other shipping related applications].”

–Gregory Twachtman

(Michelle Owens, M/C/C for Caprock, 972/480-8383, ext. 224)