Offshore staff
SKUDENESHAVN, Norway – Solstad Offshore has contracted Inmarsat to provide the new Fleet LTE service for its North Sea vessels.
This provides 4G cellular connectivity via Tampnet plus satellite coverage on Inmarsat’s Fleet Xpress Ka-band and FleetBroadband L-band services, switching between networks on a fully automated basis.
Offshore vessel operators typically purchase LTE and VSAT connectivity separately, Inmarsat said, using LTE when within range of shore, rigs or wind farm networks, with crew switching manually to VSAT beyond 4G coverage limits.
However, manual switchovers can lead to sub-optimal signals or service interruptions, the company claimed. Algorithms within the Fleet LTE router are said to switch seamlessly between LTE and VSAT, ensuring optimization at all times of high-speed data transfer and low latency.
Earlier this year the service was trialled successfully onboard three Solstad vessels, and Fleet LTE will now be commissioned on the remaining vessels.
09/28/2021
