Connectivity at sea

Good connectivity is fast becoming essential for today’s maritime industry. It has many benefits associated with it, including efficiency, morale boosting and safety. However, it’s not all smooth sailing when you want to establish connectivity at sea. Here are a few challenges you may face and how Eutelsat has solved them.

Challenges for connectivity at sea

With the launch of Eutelsat ADVANCE, we wanted to address a pertinent issue for the maritime industry - how to stay connected when at sea. To solve this problem, we identified various challenges that our solution would have to solve. This blog will highlight those challenges and show how Eutelsat ADVANCE tackles them individually for the maritime industry.

Low bandwidth

Bandwidth restrictions and coverage restraints have long been a thorn in the side of connectivity at sea. However, innovations such as monitoring and tracking fuel consumption, performance and real-time weather reports all require reliable and consistent bandwidth.  In the long-term, these tools can significantly reduce your operating costs and keep your operations efficient - which is why they are fast becoming standard-issue on-board. Despite their effectiveness, the low bandwidth that sea operations have historically offered have hindered the use of these tools.

The solution

Satellite services like ADVANCE Maritime deliver high speeds that remain consistent for video streaming, entertainment and other applications. This means that monitoring and reporting tools that promote efficiency, as well as entertainment options for crew and guests alike, are now a practical reality rather than a challenge.

Unreliability

Access to coverage in the most remote regions of the world are often limited and not a source of reliable connection. At sea, this truth is apparent to all who venture out. Unstable connections, lack of coverage and lapses in service are common for systems that attempt to locate a suitable satellite for connectivity on the open sea.

The solution

ADVANCE Maritime provides redundancy coverage in the most remote parts of the world, providing a stable connection no matter where you are. It takes the above factors into account, utilising overlapping beams to take advantage of redundancy in satellite coverage. In addition, ADVANCE offers automatic fast-switching capabilities to provide seamless connection wherever you are in the world, no matter the weather or conditions at sea.

Complicated setup

Older connectivity solutions required vast amounts of heavy equipment, with a lengthy set-up, activation and deployment, as well as being locked into a long-term contract. What’s more, installing the latest solutions would take days off productive charters and operations while simultaneously taking up valuable space onboard.

The solution

ADVANCE Maritime is a complete solution that can provide connectivity quickly and easily. With a state-of-the-art platform leveraging ST Engineering’s Newtec Dialog platform, a flexible catalogue of services to choose from, and a Partner Portal for service providers to manage their network and provide a seamless user experience to their end customers, ADVANCE Maritime eliminates the need to dedicate vast spaces for reliable connectivity.

Expensive

Many connectivity plans that are specialised for use at sea take advantage of the lack of options available. Due to this, the plans are often overpriced with contracts that lock you in without taking your specific needs into account.

The solution

ADVANCE Maritime offers flexible contracts that adapt to your business needs. Our contracts are tailored for merchant, passenger, yachting and offshore markets, and can be utilised on a per-ship connectivity plan, aggregated wholesale plan or SLA-based services, depending on your needs.

ADVANCE Maritime - Eutelsat’s solution for internet connectivity at sea

ADVANCE Maritime is specially designed to meet the connectivity needs of mobile users in the most remote areas of the world. It offers packaged and wholesale solutions for service providers targeting different maritime markets with multi-regional or global coverage. The solution is flexible and scalable with overlapping beams to better align with customer needs and provide network resiliency. ADVANCE Maritime is perfectly suited to accommodate both seasonal change geographically and intense volume demand.

If you would like to find out more about Eutelsat ADVANCE Maritime or are just looking for new ways to expand your at-sea connectivity, visit our official ADVANCE Maritime page.