Iridium has taken the wraps off its second-generation maritime broadband platform. Called Iridium Pilot, the new offering delivers data rates up to 134 kbps in addition to three voice lines. Notably, Pilot will utilise Iridium’s existing OpenPort service. MITE will report on how the two services differ as more details emerge.
Pilot is engineered for improved durability while retaining a compact, lightweight design. In common with OpenPort, it has a fixed, electronically-steerable, phased-array antenna, designed to maintain connectivity in rough seas. However the platform offers a number of new capabilities for vessel telecommunications optimisation, including a built-in firewall for traffic management and a bulk configuration capability to assist in efficiently managing large volumes of units.
When announcing Pilot, Iridium highlighted an assessment by the maritime satcoms market research firm Euroconsult about a healthy outlook for entry-level services. ‘We currently see a rapid migration from legacy narrowband services to new generation broadband solutions. MSS broadband solutions, in particular those positioned in the lower price ranges, haveseen significant growth over the last two years increasing at around 120% per year,’ said Euroconsult senior consultant Richard Roithner.
‘We project growth to continue in the coming years as these systems provide an attractive value proposition for low- and medium-end markets, including fishing, shipping and leisure vessels, to provide safety communications, enhance ship operations, improve crew welfare as well as provide complementary services for VSAT. Our research has found that data rates of around 128kbps are sufficient for the majority of applications used onboard vessels today.’
Iridium stresses that Pilot will be backwards compatible with its new satellite constellation NEXT, scheduled for deployment starting in 2015.