e3 Onboard GSM Services Overview
The number of people who would charter a large super yacht, or take a holiday on a cruise liner that do not own, let alone depend on a cell phone or PDA for their primary method of communication can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. The ability for crew to call or send text messages home makes them happier to be at sea for long periods of time.
All the above is very logical and obvious in today's world of communication dependent people.
The technology and the licencing issues are not elementary but e3 has the solution with eCell@Sea powered by MCP which is the only system designed for the super yacht market.
Let's start with the technology. This consists of:
1. A base station installation on the vessel that turns the vessel into it's own GSM cell.
2. A distributed antenna system (DAS) around the vessel to allow cell phones to work in
the areas required, such as the engine room.
3. A connection from the vessel to land via a satellite. If the people on the vessel need to
be able to make more than one call at a time then a VSAT has to be used.
4. A service operator needs to be provided on the installed equipment to make it all work.
The equipment installation is straightforward. The service provider is the tricky bit.
Cruise Ship Business Model
There are a number of successful systems such as WMS and MCP that have cornered the cruise ship market. The cruise ship business model has thousands of people making lots of short calls and sending text messages, therefore the service provider makes money from calls made.
Commercial Ship Business Model
The commercial ship market has some applications similar to the cruise ship market but most commercial ships have a small number of crew with low budgets. Blue Ocean Wireless have developed a system that uses Inmarsat and is limited to one operator and on ecall at a time.
Super Yacht Business Model
The super yacht market is a completely different business model. There are a small number of long calls. The need is also to receive urgent and important calls and to connect to almost any operator in the world. The service also needs to be flexible. The service provider will not make money from calls and needs to have a long list of bi-lateral roaming agreements to be successful. This is a premium service business model and thus requires a monthly fee to be paid for the service and calls are paid for as roaming calls on the callers home service contract.
As with eVSAT we have created our own specialist eCell@Sea system using the best equipment and GSM service from MCP Maritime Communications Partners.
e3 Systems - There is a difference!
Further information/Datasheets
Related Links
The technology required CellatSea Compact
