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Ground Control Systems can provide state of the art communications at sea with Inmarsat's Fleet
BroadBand network.
Ground Control has been able to team their experience in satellite
communications with GeoData Publisher's system integration techniques to keep TDI Brooks fleet of research vessels connected
across the globe.
GeoData Publishers Inc. has long been the preferred partner for
many data management and IT services for TDI Brooks for over 12
years. In the past year, GeoData Publishers was tasked with the
problem of improving communications method to all of their five
research vessels operating worldwide. Ground Control, being a
leader in the Fleet/BGAN sector, was brought in to provide their
expertise on the equipment, satellite bandwidth and management portal.
The Sailor 250 has given TDI Brooks an unprecedented opportunity
to monitor and manage critical assets 24/7 from their corporate
headquarters without paying tens of thousands of dollars to use
comparable technology. The ability to connect to a remote ship prior
to the availability of the Sailor 250 systems would simply have been
cost prohibitive. In the case of the TDI Brooks fleet a need existed
for a constant connection, but with a limited data transmission need.
The Sailor 250 systems were the perfect solution, with minimal service
charge per month and a usage charge on a per megabyte basis,
rivaling the airtime charges of a satellite dialup system transmitting
the same volume of data.
Prior to the Sailor 250 systems, TDI Brooks had relied on dialup
methods ranging from Iridium to GlobalStar, which of course required
a manual connection to the Internet initiated from onboard the vessel
- thus connecting to the vessel was simply unavailable. Automated
methods of monitoring systems onboard a vessel was simply impossible
to achieve.
In addition, the reliability of these dialup methods of data transmissions
was poor at best. The systems had many occurrences of the
connection being dropped during the transmission of a large data
file, forcing a restart the transmission, as well wasting the airtime
cost used during the failed attempt. Cost per megabyte of data
ranged from $24/MB to $48/MB, when considering bandwidth
throughput and cost of airtime.
The Sailor 250 systems solved both problems. Now being deployed
on every ship in the fleet along with a custom designed network
solution, which not only manages the usage (which must be managed
due to potential cost overruns), but also provides an hourly
report automatically logged to the server at TDI Brooks headquarters.
This automated report provides the condition of the onboard
ship network, and allows remote adjustments to any bandwidth management
rules from TDI Brooks headquarters. The Sailor 250 systems
along with the onboard networks, are self-reliant and do not
require any onboard IT trained personnel.
Although not allowed to surf the Internet in an unlimited fashion,
access to low bandwidth sites is allowed as well 24/7 continuous
email services and chat capabilities with friends and families. This
has created a much-needed boost in moral for individuals whom may
be deployed at sea for months on end.
One thing quickly learned was that using the Sailor 250 systems
does not mean a user on an equipped vessel will have exactly the
same kind of experience with the Internet that one would expect from
a cable modem. They are very fast compared to a dialup satellite
phone and even though the systems are considerably slower than a
cable modem, they are fast enough that a typical user will find their
connection reasonably fast enough to use as they might use the
internet at home on land. This caused
a pretty unique problem when combined
with the per megabyte
charge. The added bandwidth
allows the users to "surf" the
Internet reasonably well (although
slower). However and more
importantly, a typical user doesn't
have a clear understanding of
bandwidth usage. It is easy to"burn" through hundreds of dollars
of bandwidth without knowing it.
Very few users on the Internet know how many megabytes a typical
web page may have? In addition, computer systems are now being
designed to be continually connected via the Internet to retrieve files
from their manufacturers (i.e. drivers, updates, etc.). These files can
be very large. Consequently, this can incur a very large expense
when these filesare downloaded through a sailor system. If an XP operating system
determines that a service pack needed to be retrieved, it would do
so with no consideration to what network it was on and start retrieving
the update. If this update is a 300MB update, this would incur a
$5000 expense. Thus bandwidth must be managed effectively for
each deployment of a Sailor system.
TDI-BI solved this problem by working with their partner, GeoData
Publishers, Inc. to deploy systems along with the necessary data
management tools to allow the most effective transmission of needed
services and at the same time avoid the transmission of non-critical
or wasteful bandwidth through the Sailor systems.
All in all the Sailor 250 systems allowed TDI-BI to not only increase
the reliability of data communications with their vessels and the
lower cost of service provided a much needed personal connection
between their crews and their respective families back on shore.
TDI-BI is completely satisfied with having become dependent on the
Sailor 250s as their primary method of communicating with their
research vessels worldwide.
Static IP Address, Private Networking, Co-Location, Optimization, are all available with Ground Control. Please contact us for more information.
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