Briese Schiffahrt is expanding its use of VSAT technology to improve crew communications and vessel connectivity
The German shipmanager has increased the number of ships installed with KVH Industries’ AgilePlans satellite communications from five to 38 over the last two years. It plans to continue investing in VSAT as it introduces new ships over the next few years.
“Our plan is to equip every vessel that is sailing on waters more than 80 km from the coast with VSAT,” said Briese Schiffahrt IT manager Holger Börchers.
“For us, it is very important to provide the ease and flexibility of paying monthly without any commitment worries. It shows that KVH understands the commercial maritime market and the fact fleet sizes change.”
KVH AgilePlans provides full VSAT coverage for the Briese fleet with one price. These installations were arranged by KVH’s airtime service provider in Germany, Dualog Nordic.
Briese manages a fleet of project cargo vessels, bulk carriers and container ships. It also performs crew management for more than 2,000 seafarers.
Mr Börchers said KVH’s satellite connectivity services improve communications between office and vessels and help to manage crew accounts.
“Every morning, our crew program is synchronised and when a seafarer steps on a KVH-equipped vessel, it automatically recognises the crew member and provides the appropriate internet access,” he said.
“We know we need to offer good connectivity to get and keep good crew members.”
Nearly all 38 KVH-equipped Briese-managed vessels have a TracPhone V7-HTS, a 60-cm diameter satellite communications antenna system for high-throughput satellites (HTS) which are designed to provide data speeds up to 10 Mbps on the downlink and 3 Mbps upwards.
Two Briese-managed vessels use a TracPhone V3-HTS, a 39-cm diameter system featuring data speeds up to 6 Mbps downlink and 2 Mbps uplink. Just one vessel has a TracPhone V11-HTS, a 1-m diameter system featuring data speeds up to 20 Mbps downlink and 3 Mbps uplink.
“Briese will build a number of new vessels during the next years and all of them will be equipped with a KVH V11-HTS,” said Mr Börchers. “The very first of this new generation is planned to be delivered in mid-November.”
The AgilePlans programme also includes the NewsLink service, which enables seafarers on the Briese vessels to access daily news content from around the world, which is seen as an important aspect of crew welfare. NewsLink includes more than 65 national seafarer news dailies in more than 20 languages, plus monthly special interest editions.
KVH AgilePlans is a subscription-based connectivity service for maritime satellite communications.
It includes high-speed connectivity with unlimited email and texting via KVH’s mini-VSAT Broadband HTS network, TracPhone HTS-series hardware, cyber-security protection, media content and maintenance support.
KVH’s HTS network uses Intelsat’s FlexMaritime service for global multi-layered coverage, enabling vessels to see multiple HTS and wide-beam satellites for maximum availability of broadband service.
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