Satellite News

Marlink has teamed up with Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) to extend its Ku-band maritime VSAT services to Hong Kong, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean, Marlink announced 28 th June 2010.

The coverage expansion follows a virtual network operator agreement between the two companies that enabled Marlink to use the wide southern Ku-band beam on the ABS-1 satellite, located at 75 degrees East, which offers coverage in the Asia-Pacific region extending from Mongolia to the south of Thailand and across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Japan.

Marlink will use the ABS-1 satellite to provide greater Ku-band coverage to its WaveCall and @SEAdirect customers in Hong Kong, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.

Separately, iDirect, SpeedCast and Eutelsat Communications have expanded the reach and capabilities of their global maritime VSAT broadband service to more than 20 Ku-band beams covering 95 percent of all major shipping lanes and offshore markets.

As part of the expansion, SpeedCast and Eutelsat introduced a regional service that uses a 60-centimeter Ku-band marine antenna for smaller coastal and regional vessels. Customers of this service will be able to choose from a lineup of fixed-rate service plans for connection rates ranging from 64 kilobits per second to more than 2 megabits per second. The service includes dedicated bandwidth options to share bandwidth reliably across a wide range of applications from email and Internet access to real-time ship management software.

The service network is built on the iDirect platform and leverages technologies such as automatic beam switching across multiple satellite footprints, DVB-S2 encoding for bandwidth optimization and adaptive coding and modulation for optimized power utilization and performance in all weather conditions.

The order boosts NewSat’s orders from Orbit for the past year to NIS 7 million, with more expected this year.

Satellite communications developer Orbit Alchut Technologies Ltd. (TASE:ORBI) has received a follow-on order for a marine very small aperture terminal (VSAT) from Swiss company NewSat. The order boosts NewSat’s orders from Orbit for the past year to NIS 7 million, and to NIS 14.5 million over the past four years. Orbit expects more orders from NewSat over the course of the year.
Oribit is supplying marine VSATs for ships and offshore drilling platforms. The systems provide broadband capabilities for real-time two-way communications with onshore control centers, improving communications and slashing costs.

CapRock Communications, a global provider of VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) communications to remote environments, the launch of its latest value-added service offering, Crew Infotainment. The fully managed solution supports remote employees across energy, maritime and government services industries.

Today’s remote employees demand more than the ability to make a phone call back home to family and friends – they want reliable access to live television, video on demand, pay-per-view, gaming and music. They also need to stay updated on industry practices and technologies and be able to complete corporate training and certification courses without having to travel back to the corporate office.

By having a consolidated media console that integrates an almost limitless variety of electronic content, organizations with global operations can achieve increased employee retention, improved Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) standards compliance via distance training and reduced travel costs associated with on-site corporate training requirements.

CapRock’s Crew Infotainment is a next-generation content distribution solution. Similar to the interface and menus found in hotel television systems, customers can quickly and easily access networked and on-demand content through an intuitive television graphical interface and remote control.

“Our Crew Infotainment solution is the first of its kind for the markets we serve,” informedCapRock Director of Product Management and Marketing Rohit Chhabra. “We are one of the first licensed providers to offer video on demand content to the offshore energy market that allows customers to legally view digital content. Whether it’s for the crew onboard an offshore drilling vessel or cargo ship or even for personnel stationed at a remote camp, employees can now complete a mandatory safety training class, watch a movie in their downtime or record their favorite television show during working hours.”

The IP-based Crew Infotainment solution is scalable and modular by design to meet the unique requirements of CapRock’s diversified customer base and contains enhanced features and functionality not found in traditional analog solutions. Features include trick-play capabilities – pause, fast forward, rewind and seek – quick channel changing, closed caption options and interactive program guides for live TV. Customers can also leverage advantages over analog solutions such as improved remote troubleshooting capabilities and fewer equipment requirements – which reduce maintenance and operational costs – and the solution doesn’t require users to switch out equipment when a site moves into a new region. In addition, the on-demand content allows crew members to stay entertained and trained while en-route or outside of a satellite footprint.

CapRock secured its first crew infotainment contract with one of the largest offshore drilling contractors earlier this year. The service represents the latest addition to CapRock’s suite of crew welfare services which include prepaid crew calling cards, newspaper email service and on-demand wireless Internet service.

About CapRock Communications With more than 28 years of experience and service to customers in over 120 countries, CapRock Communications is a premier global satellite communications provider for the energy, maritime, government, engineering and construction and mining industries as well as for disaster recovery services. The company utilizes the latest field-proven satellite technologies to deliver highly reliable managed communication services including broadband Internet, Voice over IP, secure networking and real-time video to the world’s harshest and most remote locations. CapRock delivers on its commitment to set the global standard by delivering consistent quality of service, proven reliability and superior customer service. The company’s robust global infrastructure includes four self-owned and operated teleports and 11 regional support centers across North, Central and South America, Europe, West Africa and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.caprock.com.