Never has the range of communications systems available to ships been more extensive than today. The general rule of thumb, ignoring ‘roaming’ charges, is that the closer to shore, the higher the data rates and the lower the cost. This means using Wi-Fi/WiMAX (where available) near ports, cellular (where available) near shore and mobile satellite or VSAT at sea. More and more vessels are combining these services and using them when and where it makes sense. But no one wants the complication of unplugging and plugging in different equipment and using different interfaces and software to manage and monitor their data communications.
The good news is that Wired Ocean’s S-Box can connect and manage combinations of these services and make them available to the vessel’s computer network without installing any software on the vessel’s computers.
In addition to enabling vessels to select the fastest and most cost-effective communications systems where available, the S-Box also enables the use of Wired Ocean’s broadband shore to ship service, with faster data speeds and much lower costs than mobile satellite systems and cellular roaming services.
Wired Ocean has also incorporated state of the art performance enhancement systems in the S-Box and at its network operations hub to minimise latency (processing lag or time delay), remove unnecessary handshaking and to accelerate, losslessly compress and cache transferred data. All of these improve the speed and reduce the quantity of data transferred to cut the overall cost, but not the quality.
Installation of a Wired Ocean S-Box gives speed and cost benefits to users, whether in or out of these coverage areas. Of course, the greatest benefits are to be had when inside Wired Ocean coverage. However, outside these areas, Wired Ocean still optimises and enhances data delivery, with the S-Box using any connected mobile satellite service to send and receive data.