Iridium is reporting that its new-generation global marine satellite communication system OpenPort has successfully completed sea trials on a number of different vessels, and worldwide commercial rollout is now underway.
Introduced in mid-2008, Iridium OpenPort provides three independent phone lines and a separate scalable data circuit supporting speeds of 9.6-128 kb/s. Data rates can easily be adjusted up or down without any modifications to hardware or software. The low-profile, lightweight antenna array does not require a stabilised pedestal and is therefore less costly to purchase, install and maintain.
Don Thoma, Iridium's Executive Vice-President, Marketing, comments, "In the current economic climate, shipowners are looking for ways to trim operating costs for ships at sea...Iridium OpenPort is "the only truly global high-bandwidth marine satellite communication system, with coverage over 100% of the Earth's surface, including polar waters beyond the reach of geostationary satellites."
Zodiac Shipping Agencies Ltd, one of the first shipping companies to sign up for Iridium OpenPort, conducted sea trials on two ships in collaboration with AND Group, Iridium's service provider. The vessels are currently using AND Group's Rapidomail for crew and ship's e-mail. In turn, the installations will soon be upgraded to AND's IPSignature package, which offers Internet browsing, company Intranet, instant messaging and other functions as well as e-mail, according to Ian Robinson, managing director of AND Group. Zodiac expects to move forward with more installations across its 125-ship fleet in the coming year.
Peter Döhle Schiffahrts-KG conducted sea trials with an Iridium OpenPort unit on a 1,600-teu container ship under a service agreement with Vizada, another Iridium Service Provider. Michael Dittmer, the company's Fleet IT and Communication Coordinator, reported that he was "... very happy with the service," which fulfilled his expectations. He expects to install the Iridium OpenPort units on other ships in the Peter Döhle fleet in the near future. "Before implementing this plan fully we need to wait for the full results from the tests, but this is definitely the direction we want to head in, because we completely trust the service," said Dittmer.
An ocean-going tug within the Argentine Navy also relied on Iridium OpenPort as a primary communication medium during a three-month deployment to support Antarctic bases during the Austral summer. The system was installed by service provider Tesacom. In areas outside the coverage of all other commercial satellite systems, the Argentine Navy turned to Iridium's Low-Earth Orbiting (LEO)-based system, which offers reliable coverage over every square inch of the planet. The ship's commanding officer, Rodrigo Martin Arrigues, noted that the Iridium OpenPort service played an important role in coordinating communications during operations to rescue passengers and crew from a cruise ship that ran aground on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Perhaps the toughest testbed for Iridium OpenPort has been the single-handed round-the-world Vendée Globe sailboat race. SeaMobile Europe installed Iridium OpenPort terminals on five of the high-performance sailboats, commenting, "This was the toughest possible environment to validate the ruggedness of the Iridium OpenPort hardware and the robustness of the network...This grueling event puts enormous day-by-day stresses on the boats and equipment, under extremes of hot and cold temperatures, high winds and heavy seas, and the Iridium OpenPort units performed extremely well under these unforgiving conditions."
Don Thoma notes that Iridium has signed up 15 service partners to distribute the Iridium OpenPort products and service packages worldwide. In many cases, these companies are integrating Iridium OpenPort into their own hardware and software packages to provide a range of voice and IP-based data solutions for customer requirements.
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