Stratos also announced it has begun a FleetBroadband field trial with its long-standing customer, the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN). Stratos says that this field trial establishes the RNLN as the first organisation to activate the FleetBroadband service.

The three-month field trial is being conducted onboard the RNLN Van Kinsbergen in Western European waters, including the Western Baltic.

"We believe the field trial of FleetBroadband from Stratos will provide the RNLN with an excellent opportunity to evaluate the benefits of this new high-performance service in a wide variety of deep-water conditions," said Lieutenant (RNLN) S.H. Veenstra, commanding officer of the Van Kinsbergen.

"High-speed connectivity has become vital in today's naval world. This enhanced communication will also help elevate the quality of education and training to new levels."

Both Stratos and Vizada will aim to compete mainly on the provision of value added services to supplement the high-speed connectivity of FleetBroadband.

Vizada will offer its Terralink interconnection solution, which provides secure links from vessels to the corporate network and also helps to optimise transmission speeds, as well as a fixed-to-mobile solution called Satellite Direct that enables shore personnel to inexpensively and rapidly contact vessels through a toll-free number.

Stratos' main value added offering is the Stratos Advantage service, which it says will provide users with cost and traffic control, firewall management, data optimisation, high security options, easy VPN access, messaging services and full IP range.

In addition to offering Stratos Advantage, Stratos says it will also work with other application partners to deliver broadband business solutions in other areas like voyage management, remote management, IT management and cargo management.