Published July 16, 2010 – Business Times
Inmarsat’s fleet broadband service takes off

By JOYCE HOOI

SATELLITE communications firm Inmarsat says the maritime industry is going big on broadband.

In the past six months alone, Inmarsat has registered 5,000 terminal installations on the vessels of its maritime customers.

This takes the total number of installations to 10,000 since its Fleet Broadband service was introduced in 2007, said James Collett, senior director of Inmarsat’s maritime division.

Increasing demand for operational and crew data communication facilities on vessels at sea will continue to drive broadband connection usage, Mr Collett reckons.

‘70 per cent of communications traffic in the maritime sector today is data and 30 per cent is voice,’ he said. ‘10 years ago, it was the other way around.’

In 2009, the maritime sector accounted for US$357 million – or 52 per cent – of Inmarsat Global’s revenue.

Within the sector, data services revenue is more than double voice services revenue and growing at a phenomenal clip – a 10.8 per cent year-on-year increase.

While large merchant vessels increasingly use broadband services to keep channels of communication with onshore centres open, crew members use them to send e-mails, check Facebook accounts and read online versions of their favourite newspapers.

Even as data capacity improves, shipowners’ wish-lists have become longer. Live television feeds, video surveillance of vessels from shore and cargo monitoring are all being clamoured for.

While data usage on vessels has increased, the cost per unit of data has fallen dramatically.

Communication costs for the average merchant vessel currently account for less than one per cent of operating costs, according to Mr Collett.

The potential for growth is particularly exciting for Inmarsat, given the untapped nature of the maritime broadband market.

‘Less than 10 per cent of our maritime customers are on broadband and less than 5 per cent are really using it in a real broadband sense,’ Mr Collett said.

He estimates that about 50,000 ships have data requirements that are not being met, and that at least a third of them are in the Asian region.

‘We are looking to increase our presence in Singapore and are getting a dedicated maritime person as part of the team,’ he said. Singapore currently houses Inmarsat’s regional headquarters.