Beyond LEO: Building always on connectivity for vessels

Vessels have experienced a revolution during the past three years, and while most of us working in technology immediately think of Starlink, something even more important changed beyond fast internet and cheap antennas: users’ expectations.

And we don’t have to spend time onboard a vessel to understand the impact. In fact, every one of us who lived during the transition from 56 Kbps dial-up internet to DSL and fiber connectivity in our households in the late nineties, was affected by the same type of revolution. Indeed, who deems it acceptable these days to have to wait for about one minute for a webpage to load?

Similarly, during the past twenty years, vessels have experienced a satellite communications technology transition from expensive narrow-band Kbps-based connectivity to economical hundreds of Mbps-based internet connections. This, mainly thanks to the launch of LEO low-orbit satellites like Starlink and Eutelsat OneWeb, with the former becoming understandably the status quo on any vessel in just a couple of years challenging even land-based communications like 5G.

But meeting internet users’ expectations can become challenging even when a vessel is equipped with Starlink. In fact, while the service provides global maritime coverage, its availability in territorial waters is regulated by every country. And, for a vessel sailing internationally, this can represent an unresolvable challenge. Additionally, while LEO service outages and antennas failure rates have proven to be very low, the chance that they happen in the middle of a crossing or with guests and crew onboard working or enjoying their vacations (always connected, of course), are not null. Without ignoring stricter cybersecurity requirements also affecting our sector, claiming for data sovereignty and protection.

The solution to minimizing those risks and limitations comes as the most obvious and ancient one: having a backup connection.

But having just a backup may not be sufficient anymore to meet internet users’ expectations, and the advancements in connectivity technology with an increasing number of LEO service options to choose from come to help Captains and Engineers to create the perfect recipe for an always-connected and expectations-proof vessel. And this is pretty simple to achieve, with virtually plug&play LEO antennas for high-speed internet, accompanied by existing VSAT systems for always-on connectivity in any corner of the globe, all managed by intelligent multi-orbit platforms capable of maintaining a vessel connected and its guests satisfied in all situations.

Job done? Well, almost. There is also the administrative side to be considered: the number of subscribed Gigabytes and Terabytes, requiring continuous estimations and budgeting across multiple services.

At OmniAccess, we wanted to create a “expectations-proof” end-to-end solution that is simple to manage and scalable, aligned to our philosophy applied to any products we develop. Combine LEO+LEO+GEO services to get Fusion 2.0, providing you with the bundle of Terabytes you require every month, with a management portal and platform to control and monitor network availability and data consumption, so you get the first important building block of your best internet connection anywhere and anytime, with one stress-free contract and our Unity and Customer Support Portal (CSP) single pane of glass to control it, all supported 24/7 by our Technical Support Center.

But you can go beyond the enormous advantages that the simplicity of a single contract and management platform offer, by hardening and controlling real user experience from the same Unity platform. UNITY, is indeed designed to be scalable to new technologies and vessels’ needs, and as such we implemented a new private WAN bonding capability that allows your vessel to take full advantage of all active connections while improving overall performance and availability. Moreover, with Unity you can now monitor real internet quality of experience (QoE) of your guests, hence getting the ultimate visibility on how Fusion 2.0 meets your internet users’ expectations.

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