Satmind unveils Seabrowser crew welfare system

Satmind has unveiled Seabrowser, a system for providing crew welfare, and enabling a variety of communication services at low bandwidth levels. Seabrowser can deliver low bandwidth internet services to seafarers allowing them to remain in touch with family while at sea, said Satmind founder and chief executive Zvika Nave. “Crew communications on commercial ships is expensive – the price per megabyte is high,” he explains. “It is hard for shipping companies to provide good crew welfare packages, with voice over IP, messaging, and internet.”

To tackle these issues, Satmind developed Seabrowser for L-band services on ships. “We have built a system to overcome these problems, to give shipping companies a good price and time to provide these services to seafarers,” he said. “We use a strong compression engine including an application interface to reduce the bandwidth and lower the price for shipowners. We also offer the option of allowing crew to use the internet at lower costs.”

SeaBrowser has an interface that minimises the bandwidth by removing non-essential data from internet, e-mail and voice services. It also has a dashboard for crew to access these services using onboard PCs and tablets, and for managers to control the access and bandwidth.