Barry Parker Satcoms MAIN HEAD As satcoms get faster DECK HEAD Barry Parker looks at the satellite communications requirements for cable laying ships and the latest software from ShipNet and ABS Nautical Systems Cable laying is a maritime business that has remained under the radar. Even in the age of satellites, the worldwide infrastructure of deepsea fibre optic cables must be maintained, typically by fleets of very specialist vessels that remain at sea for weeks at a time. One such vessel is "Cable Retriever," built 1997, and based in Singapore. She works in the Global Marine fleet on installation and maintenance projects around Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Besides having a capability to launch remote operated vehicles (ROV), the vessel can accommodate up to 80 people, consisting of crew and representatives from the multiple companies involved in cable installation or management, some of whom routinely require office capability aboard the vessel. Earlier this year, Global Crossing subsidiary Global Marine Systems, owner of the "Retriever" and more than a dozen other vessels, installed a VSAT system from New York based Broadband Maritime. According to Mary Ellen Kramer, with two decades of experience setting up voice and data networks before forming Broadband in 1999, "the always on permanent hookup, for a fixed monthly price, will enable better connections between onboard applications and landside systems, and will support contact between vessel crews and both homes and shoreside offices." Cable vessels require continuous round the clock communications for crew calling, a big morale booster in any situation, consultation with cable stakeholders on a world-wide basis and transfers of large files - relating to bathymetry, seabed contours and conventional navigation charts. One of the vessel's subcontractors, UK based Engineering Business Ltd, which serves underwater pipeline and cable industries, lists "live remote maintenance, cable plan upload and as-laid chart download across the Internet," in one research paper. It describes control systems where "...as each cable segment is complete, charts can be plotted on board and the results e-mailed back to head office." Before Broadband Maritime came on the scene, VSAT, described as a big voice and data pipe in the sky, was offered on a fully costed basis by providers targeting the cruise and offshore oil sectors. Through superior network optimization, Broadband has been able to provide a robust package, at 64 kb/ second transmission rate, with a price point that rivals the costs presented to high volume Inmarsat users. The endorsement from Global Marine Systems- a leader in its sector, and recent installations aboard Danaos and General Maritime vessels places Broadband Maritime in a powerful perch to bring always on connectivity to both the demanding offshore sector and to the more workaday world of merchant shipping. But it will not happen overnight. SUBHEAD Do you need always on? Digital Ship asked maritime software companies ABS NS and ShipNet about the Holy grail of ship to shore communications- direct connectivity into an office network. The ABS NS team described an incremental approach, first that "... vessels could connect into home offices via remote access software (once bandwidths on the order of hundreds of KB per second become available)" and, then, that vessels could behave just like other nodes on a LAN "once network like speeds of 4 - 10 Mbps become available." According to ABS NS, "those days still appear to be a long way off." ABS NS takes the view that today's high speed dial-up, pay by the minute Inmarsat services such as Inmarsat Fleet ISDN and MPDS] are better suited to applications requiring more modest bandwidth, such as e-mail, rather than needing an always on connection on VSAT. Inmarsat Fleet services "can also be helpful for occasional troubleshooting of problems with the onboard computers or networks, making the ship management systems easier and less costly to administer by saving the office systems administrators a trip to the vessel in many cases," ABS says. In conversations with ABS-NS's president Jack Kitchura, and vice president / chief technology officer Evan Michaelides, they describe their present world, as one "...where the high cost and low bandwidth of ship-to-shore communications has always meant that shipboard users of such systems cannot, as a practical matter, remain connected full-time to the office-based system. Instead, sophisticated data replication software (such as that provided by ABS NS) is required, capable of synchronizing the shipboard database with the office database while using only short, economical 'bursts' of communications bandwidth to do so." The team at NS were quick to point out that, in a replication environment, temporary snafus that would interrupt high-speed service (for example, dead spots in particular area, or weather related disruptions) are just that- temporary. The data replication can be done at a later time. SUBHEAD ShipNet This view is echoed by the chief executive of software provider ShipNet, Sven-Erik Dolvik, who spoke to The Digital Ship following a well-attended user conference held in Western Norway. Mr. Dolvik pointed out another plus for the present approach, stating, "I think it is clear that 'rich client' applications are superior to 'browser based' applications. He also echoed the concern about communications going down, and emphasized the importance of "continuing to run critical applications and data required for the safe operation of the ship" in an off-line mode. Mr. Dolvik mentioned his company's ".NET" functionality, presently being rolled out to customers, saying that "..with .NET , we will be able to support a more robust distribution model for software updates and remote support will become possible." ShipNet's Mr Dolvik, when asked about what enhancements he would envision in a high speed future, expressed a desire to move towards a distributed data model, "where real time queries of data held both onshore and aboard vessels would be possible." Such queries would support an enhanced vessel management process. He enumerated items on a wish list, if no constraints existed on the cost of ship shore communications that included "an electronic file cabinet where it is possible to share digital photos, scanned documents and engine monitoring data." Like his compatriots at NS, he is under no illusions that his wishes would come true immediately. SUBHEAD Open communications On the business front, both ABS-NS and ShipNet stressed a need to be open about communications partners. ShipNet's Mr. Dolvik describes the firm's strategy as " the customer decide what partners and vendors that they would like to work with," adding that the ShipNet concept "supports any comms provider that we know." Mssrs. Kitchura and Michaelides expressed a similar view, adding "our strong inclination would be to support a standards-based architecture that renders the software application independent of any particular comms provider." They confirmed that this provider-agnostic approach is not new- noting that their "Replication Manager" product "can and does function with a wide variety of communication vendors' hardware and software." SUBHEAD Remote vessel monitoring The investigators conducting the recently completed TELEMAS project, dealing with remote monitoring of vessel systems and remote maintenance, came to similar conclusions. The project, funded by the European Community (with participation by Columbia Ship Management and Teekay), looked at development of a common gateway, "the Umbrella", for manufacturers, or home offices, to monitor performance of engines, for example, or to diagnose a problem in a vessel electronics system by studying the onboard log files. The TELEMAS focus was on ubiquity of secure data flows, not surprising leaning towards TCP/IP architecture. As far as communications, their view was: "For the purposes of transferring data to and from the TELEMAS Umbrella, it is recommended to use a port of TCP/IP protocol as described . "The way of communicating can be done no matter what the communication link is, internet, satellite, modem, or mobile telephone." Direct connections to office networks will require faster transmissions than are presently being made available, but developers of onboard applications are clearly thinking about the future. Websites http://www.abs-ns.com http://www.broadbandmaritime.com http://www.shipnet.no http://www.telemas.de