Inmarsat announced that its ‘Fleet Xpress’, which won the 2017 SMART4SEA Excellent Award last January, had an unprecedented market response at the first time of its launch covering in excess of 10,000 ships. The company explains that this milestone has been reached as a result of contracts with individual ship owners, commitments from strategic Partners, and transitioning agreements with existing Inmarsat customers.
The demand of the Fleet Xpress shows that the market has been truly ready for the connected ship and the network supporting maritime business applications, as well as that shipping has adopted a sense of entitlement to continuous connectivity, according to Ronald Spithout, President Inmarsat Maritime.
“Powered by Global Xpress, the Fleet Xpress combination of high-speed broadband via Ka-band backed up by reliable L-band has set a new standard for global maritime communications, acknowledged both by end users and by our partner network”.
As a further offering within the Fleet Xpress service, Inmarsat announced that is developing its own cyber security solution, which plans to roll out this year. Jointly developed with Singtel and its cyber security arm Trustwave, the managed Unified Threat Management (UTM) solution will help operators to become more cyber resilient while adopting the Internet of Things and the benefits of Big Data aboard their fleet.
“Given the appetite for Fleet Xpress one year after launch, our commitment is focused on ensuring that the connected ship’s efficiency and crew welfare gains are as widely available and easy to implement as possible, within a highly secure service network environment,” said Spithout.
