Today at the Satellite Conference and Exhibition 2017, Thales – a leading provider of satellite communications – announced it will enter the commercial maritime communications market. The newly available satellite communications solution, VesseLINK, will provide commercial maritime vessels with a truly global broadband connectivity solution for the entire maritime ecosystem.
VesseLINK will provide critical marine operations with a lifeline to shore whenever or wherever a vessel may be at sea by offering an affordable, enterprise-grade solution designed to meet the unique challenges of maritime environments. The lightweight solution also affords a simple, adaptable and robust design and easy to use interface for ship captains and crews. It can be installed as a stand-alone solution or used as a VSAT companion.
The solution will deliver essential communications for enhanced safety features and critical operations ensuring that customers have the most reliable capabilities for their individual vessel or fleet-wide needs. It can be equipped on all marine platforms, including commercial shipping, workboats, fishing vessels, leisure and luxury boats, and cruise ships. It will also be available to military customers as a commercial off-the-shelf solution or be adapted to meet the needs of diverse military operations.
VesseLINK on Iridium will be the first of the Thales marine product line and it will operate using Iridium CertusSM broadband services over a network of 66 satellites that cover 100% of the globe, including poles and oceans.
The VesseLINK on Iridium solution provides highly reliable, mobile and essential voice, text and Internet communications. This fully integrateable, multi-service platform will allow users to simultaneously communicate using IP data sessions, and streaming data, all on a multi-user capable platform for multiple devices. Additional features include 4G LTE pairing, embedded WiFi access, softphone capable, optional handset, and Android and iOS support functionality.
Its electronics package and antennas can support the fastest upload and download speeds offered through Iridium Certus and are software-upgradeable for easily enabled access to new services as they become available. The VesseLINK product offering will be available to customers with different service provider packages in the near future.
About Thales
Thales is a global technology leader for the Aerospace, Transport, Defense and Security markets. With 62,000 employees in 56 countries, Thales reported sales of $15.5 billion in 2015. With over 22,000 engineers and researchers, Thales has a unique capability to design and deploy equipment, systems and services to meet the most complex security requirements. Thales’ unique international footprint allows it to work closely with customers all over the world.
