By
Jon Ingleton |
The task of providing reliable telecommunications while at sea is incredibly complex.
With telecommunications contracting activity rife in the passenger shipping market, service providers are upping their game to help secure long-term deals and grow market share. Every ship operator wants higher bandwidth and 99.9% availability at a price point that simply cannot be achieved through pure satellite communications.
Brent Horwitz, senior vice president and general manager of cruise and ferry services at MTN, says that his company has taken a good few paces towards simplifying the infrastructure requirements and reducing costs. The maritime telco specialists are winning business through a programme of investment in long-range coastal terrestrial broadband access points.
“A 500ft mast can give us a service range of up to 27 miles,” explains Horwitz. “For example, our access points in Miami will reach almost half way to the Bahamas, and the St. Maarten access point will reach almost the entire distance to Puerto Rico!”
In blending their terrestrial broadband service with the industry’s most powerful satellite communications network to fill the gaps, Horwitz believes that MTN have an unrivalled offering.
“With our patented ZeroImpact smart switching, our customers get a rich, uninterrupted and faster connection,” he says. “In addition, our partners can pass on competitive pricing based on our ability to offer the hybrid option versus all satellite connectivity.”
The benefits of a better, faster, cheaper service extend beyond a passenger audience, with a ship’s crew able to enjoy voice and data at a lower price too.
“Typically operators offer crew three options: a regular rate (steeply discounted against the passenger tariff), an off-peak rate (from late at night to early morning) and an in-port, or terrestrial, rate (within port range),” says Horwitz.
The service is winning plaudits and big user numbers across both audience groups.
“One customer, P&O Ferries, carries more than 9 million users per year, and that represents a significant revenue stream for any business,” he explains.
Although MTN is enjoying passenger and crew satisfaction high, revenue potential enormous and the technology infrastructure in robust condition, perhaps there’s time for MTN to sit back and collect the orders?
“We believe that we’re two years ahead of our competitors but we need to keep innovating and investing,” insists Horwitz. “We’ve got good terrestrial broadband coverage in the Caribbean and Europe but we keep looking at more sites based on our customers’ needs. Hardware and software innovations, such as our enhanced internet platform, are a constant. We also must continue to evolve our price-plans to consumption-based models, which is appealing to users of our clients’ services because then they only pay for what they use.”