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July, 2006
Marine Log
Wireless communications at sea
Communications at sea is no longer limited to
ship-to-shore radio signals and costly phone calls. The marine
industry has joined with the rest of the world in jumping on the
wireless communications bandwagon. A surge in contracts for cellular
service onboard ships is keeping companies like LGC Wireless,
Wireless Maritime Services (WMS) and Maritime Telecommunications
Network (MTN) very busy. The demand for cellular service onboard
cruise ships is especially popular as passengers wish to remain
connected for various reasons even while they are on vacation.
LGC
Wireless, San Jose, Calif., recently announced that WMS, a joint
venture of Cingular Wireless
and MTN (which was recently acquired by SeaMobile, Inc., Seattle,
Wash.), will install its InterReach Unison systems for integration
with MTN’s satellite network onto cruise ships, making “four bar”
CDMA and GMS-based cell phone service available to passengers
worldwide. Some of the cruise lines participating include the usual
suspects – Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian, as well as
Holland America, Celebrity Cruises, Orient Lines and Crystal
Cruises, among others.
Because of
such high demand for onboard cellular service, Rob Marjerison, WMS
vice president of deployment and business development, expects the
number of ship deployments for LGC and WMS to double by the end of
2006.
LGC
Wireless supplies WMS with distributed antenna systems that provide
cellular
service throughout a ship, despite the all-steel construction.
Wireless signals are made available through an LGC ship-mounted
satellite antenna that distributes the signal via Unison Main and
Expansion Hubs, as well as 60 other strategically placed antennae.
Unison uses standard, flexible fiber and Cat-5 cabling that make
installation and deployment simple, as opposed to rigid coaxial
cabling which can be up to 7/8 inches in diameter.
Over 340
cellular carriers worldwide have roaming partnerships with WMS
including Sprint, Cingular, T-Mobile, Alltel, Orange UK, O2 and
Vodaphone. A “roaming partnership” simply means that carriers bill a
cellular user based on the roaming charges associated with that
particular user’s service plan.
In fact,
while many cell phone users cringe at the thought of roaming
charges, calls made at sea will only cost from $1.00 to $4.00 per
minute, in comparison to ship-to-shore satellite calls that can cost
upward of $7.00 per minute, which can be especially costly for crew
and staff. The ships themselves receive a portion of this per-minute
revenue for set-up and deployment of the service, which can cost
around $300,000 for a large ship.
www.lgcwireless.com
www.mtnsat.com
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