Inmarsat has announced that its real-time ECDIS updating service, announced in collaboration with SRH Marine SAIT in October 2018, is now commercially available to any user that activates the new dedicated bandwidth Application Access Point Name (APN) system developed by the satellite operator.
The system allows FleetBroadband customers to connect to the SRH Delta platform, which includes chart updates, publications and notices to mariners, for real-time updating over L-band outside of the vessel’s already contracted bandwidth allocation.
Inmarsat and SRH signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) announcing their intentions to develop the product last October, with laboratory tests and sea trials having been undertaken in the intervening period prior to this commercial launch.
“The SRH platform is the first application by a third party supplier to use our new FleetBroadband Application APN, and in this instance allows ship owners and managers worldwide to update ECDIS charts seamlessly and securely, on demand and without interrupting their primary bandwidth service,” said Ronald Spithout, President, Inmarsat Maritime.
“The contract signing followed laboratory tests of the new ECDIS-update application at Inmarsat’s R&D facilities in Ålesund, Norway, and full sea trials conducted by SRH Marine over a three-month period.”
Inmarsat says that it plans to introduce a range of new value added services from third party developers taking advantage of this new Application APN capability for FleetBroadband in the coming months, to add to this ECDIS-based offering.
