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do expect them same service anywhere in the world. Bandwidth availability and the expectations of our customers may be currently higher than the available tech- nology. Lower operating costs are also key, but distribution channels and com- petitors lowering their profit margins at next to nothing when is also a key factor. How is your company investing today to better serve the maritime market? Oro, Ship Equip Ship Equip has in- vested heavily in the training of person- nel and developing infrastructure, so we can better serve the market today and meet increasing needs tomorrow. We re- cently opened two new Network Opera- tions Centers (NOC), one in Singapore and one in Houston. These strategically located facilities support our primary NOC in Alesund, Norway. Meijer, Stratos Stratos incorporates The Stratos Advantage value-added serv- ices into each total customer solution – enabling ship managers to attain the highest possible performance and support from their satcom solutions, at the low- est possible cost. The foundation of The Stratos Advantage is Stratos Dashboard and AmosConnect. Stratos Dashboard is an online communications management solution that enables ship managers to re- motely derive maximum cost control and traffic control from their broadband usage. To support the changing require- ments of shipping companies, Stratos is expanding it’s its broadband solutions to include end-to-end, managed IP services – which include design, installation, maintenance and support. Fisher, Mackay Vessel management tools to control communication costs, and troubleshoot onboard satellite equip- ment problems. Vessels can no longer af- ford to wait to get into port to fix a communications problem. Baez, KVH Our engineering and product development teams are working on new, lower-profile antenna designs that could offer onboard satellite com- munications to a larger segment of the maritime market. We will continue to work together with our partner, Viasat, to implement strategies that will increase bandwidth utilization and extend network management features for the fleet opera- tors, platform managers, and end users who depend on our network. Finally, KVH continues to invest in our global mini-VSAT Broadband network. Our lat- est satellite footprint expansion, which brings coverage to Brazilian waters, demonstrates our commitment to provid- ing global connectivity. Jensen, Thrane & Thrane Downturn or not, we have not reduced our development of new products. We are continuously developing our VSAT of- fering with some exciting results which we plan to introduce this year. Also last year we launched a major new product line at SMM, the SAILOR 6000 GMDSS Series, which is a combination of new radio, satcoms and ICT products. It will be the first such system to offer touch- screen operation and the ability to signif- icantly reduce maintenance through the introduction of our new ThraneLINK networking solution. O’Brien, Iridium We are mov- ing forward with our next-generation satellite constellation under the Iridium NEXT program. We have contracted with Thales Alenia Space to be the prime con- tractor for Iridium NEXT, and secured fa- vorable financing with guarantees from the French export agency Coface. Launches of the new satellites are sched- uled to take place in 2015-2017. Iridium NEXT will use an IP-based architecture offering data speeds up to 1.5 Mbps. Im- portantly, Iridium NEXT is being de- signed to be 100 percent backward compatible with the current satellites, meaning that all existing Iridium satellite terminals will be able to work on the new network. Weintraub, MTN MTN is in- vesting in the rollout of iDirect’s most powerful EVOLUTION DVB-S2 operat- ing system, this will further enhance MTN’s already established iDirect pow- ered seamless global communications network. Today, MTN uses iDirect tech- nology to provide “always on” two-way VSAT services from ten teleports around the globe utilizing over 900 MHz of transponder capacity on 21 communica- tions satellites. The new Evolution up- grade will bring MTN Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) into their tech- nology platform, which preserves signal quality from rain fade and other weather- related issues. The upgrade also provides additional bandwidth segmentation, Au- tomatic Beam Switching (traversing satellite beams), the ability to operate smaller antenna sizes using spread spec- trum technology and provides more ef- fective network management. In the next 12 months MTN will be launching the next generation of its In- ternet Café’s, leveraging both the tech- nology on the ships as well as technology devices including laptops and hand held February 2011 www.marinelink.com 47 MTN
