MAIN HEAD
GSM on a ship

DECK HEAD
GSM communications tools are becoming more and more ubiquitous - you can use a GSM cellular phone in nearly all terrestrial parts of the world. But how about on a ship?	

It costs about Eur 25,000 to fit equipment to send and receive GSM calls onboard a ship - then you can expect to pay Eur 50c for each text message you send - for any phone calls, you can expect to pay a per-minute cost calculated to include the satellite communications cost, and a bit extra for both the shipping company and the mobile phone company.

And in order for the shipboard GSM to work, you need to have an always on satellite connection with the shore - so this means either a Fleet MPDS, carrying the voice calls as voice over IP, or a VSAT connection.

Also, it is illegal to use a non-licensed GSM transceiver in range of land, in case it interferes or adds to the terrestrial GSM signals, which the local operator will have probably paid large licensing fees for. This means that as soon as the ship comes into range of land the shipmaster has to remember to switch the GSM off. 

It doesn't sound like a particularly attractive proposition right at this moment, but could well be one for the future, when always on high-bandwidth shipboard connections might be a sensible proposition on most ships, thanks to the launch of the Inmarsat I-4 satellites. 

If GSM is everywhere on land, then passengers and shippers might think it reasonable for GSM to be available on ships as well.


SUBHEAD
Altobridge

Altobridge, a company based in Tralee, Ireland, has won venture capital to set up a business providing exactly this service - GSM communications onboard ships and also in aeroplanes.

The business plan for the maritime industry is to make systems which can be used to transfer container tracking / status reports and enable seafarers to make phone calls. 

Altobridge envisages that shippers of goods will be keen to fit GSM tracking devices inside box containers (similar to the devices being fitted inside European trucks and trains). These will send regular position and status reports (temperature, container security) back to the shipper, whether the container is on road.

The technical brains behind Altobridge is Stephen Brunskill, who, as an employee of BT Aeromaritime, was involved in the first ever project to fit a GSM system on a ship, for cruise company P+O, to enable cruise passengers to make phone calls. 

One thing GSM companies are extremely good at is doing billing / licensing deals. So it will be quite feasible to build a system whereby the holder of the cellular phone or container tracking device pays for the satcoms cost as part of his normal bill with his home GSM company; the home GSM company then pays a portion of the money to the shipping company, which then has to pay the satcom bill. 

Altobridge's basic shipboard GSM system will cost Eur 25,000; for a little bit more it can be expanded to also pick up 802.11 and Bluetooth, standard short range wireless networking protocols, and CDMA, another mobile phone system.

A large ship with holds may need a number of GSM antennas inside it for complete coverage, but the antennas are quite cheap, just $3,000 each.

In the shipping sector, Altobridge is targeting its products at the superyacht market, where it anticipates that there will be plenty of cost-no-object people keen to continue using their cellular phones outside terrestrial coverage area, and the merchant sector for use in container tracking. 

It believes that container shipping companies may be persuaded to provide the service so they can offer it to their own shippers as a premium service; of course, for every 50c shipboard container status position report the shipper makes, a portion of that goes back to the shipping company.

Whether or not this is a reasonable business proposition for now, the limitations of Inmarsat is going to be a problem - there is no Inmarsat service that can carry both voice and data, without a special dial-up facility, so that if the shipboard GSM dials the number, then the shipboard telephone dials the number. 

The only possible option is having vessels connected to an Inmarsat Fleet MPDS always on, which can carry voice over IP. This is going to be expensive. It looks like it would have to be VSAT.