I live out in the ‘sticks’ of Brown County, Indiana. My only option for broadband has been satellite or a T1 line. I opted for the T1 line a few years ago. What happens though if you’re an Alaskan crab fisherman out in the middle of the ocean and need internet connectivity to check weather conditions, email and make phone calls.
Back in 2009, Captain Sig Hansen, replaced the communications system onboard his fishing vessel, the Northwestern, with an Inmarsat FleetBroadband terminal. Check out the video below where he talks about his experience with this system.
Inmarsat just added a new emergency voice distress service to their FleetBroadband that allows captain’s like Sig Hansen to call the nearest Maritime Rescue Coordination Center for free if the get into trouble.
FleetBroadband Capabilities:
Standard IP
Up to 432kbps over a shared channel, for email, internet and intranet access
Streaming IP
Guaranteed data rates on demand up to 256kbps.
Voice
Make phone calls at the same time as accessing data applications.
ISDN
Supports ISDN at 64kbps for legacy applications.
SMS text
Send and receive text messages.
Overview of 505 Emergency Calling:
505 Emergency Calling is a short code dialing facility that provides direct access to maritime relief.
Inmarsat have just launched a voice distress service on FleetBroadband:
The voice distress service utilises FleetBroadband to provide priority call access – interrupting all non-distress calls – either ship-to-shore or shore-to-ship, as soon as the – red distress button – on the alarm panel is pressed. The caller will then be connected to an operator at one of three Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centres (MRCCs) strategically located around the globe.
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I wonder if you can get this in Lincolnshire (UK) I can’t get a signal at all now for my android smartphone 🙁
Wow I wish I had something like that when I lived on a sailboat! All we really had were VHF radios with ship to shore and emergency channel 16. A little later there were the beginnings of cell phone technology that you carried strapped over your shoulder. Course there wasn’t no internet back then either 😛
I just did a Google search and was stunned at the cost 😛
@Jack you can if you want to pay $5000 on up past $10,000.00 just for the equipment, yikes!!!!
I was unable to find the cost per month for the service. I’m sure it’s on the website somewheres but they wanted me to fill out a form and decided it wasn’t worth my spending anymore time on this especially after knowing what the equipment cost.
I guess my old VHF Ship to Shore was good enough, even now 🙂