Source: https://frontierbv.nl/case-studies-en/jr-shipping/?lang=en
Overview
Our Peplink partner, OceanSat offered them an affordable and automated solution to reduce the fixed costs. OceanSat is a well-known company in the Maritime sector. They have meetings every week across the entire market to promote their 4G solutions. When they do so, they always raise the attention for Peplink products, the “heart” of their connection. In this case, OceanSat mentioned a Peplink solution to the customer, although they were already aware of the brand.
Challenge
At sea it is commonly known to have a cellular connection within approximately the first 12 miles. However, this strongly depends on the alignment of the antenna, cable and router (above and below deck equipment). If there is equipment installed from different manufacturers/brands, there is no real insight in the cellular coverage or signal strengths at sea, various bands (EDGE, 3G, 4G) to connect to and general knowledge about the (multi-band) antenna technology. That is why you need to be critical on the choice of hardware. This general problem on most seagoing vessels, causes an uncontrolled and difficult task to set up cellular connections at the vessel at sea. Once in port, the congestion of the network due to the many users in the port in combination with weather and chemical environment makes it also difficult to have an optimal network performance. Which is resulting in a slow and unreliable connection.
Solution
Balance 30 LTEA
- Make sure the vessel has a reliable, best possible internet connection at sea and in port.
- Provide insight in the connections data-usage, users, connected equipment, access points, etc.
- Provide quick access onto the vessels LAN to adjust or manipulate settings
- Provide pro-active support to all vessels.
As said, as system integrator, you want an aligned single brand solution where you control the entire TX and RX chain from Vessels LAN to the internet. You want to manage the antennas performance or at least measure it. You want matching as short as possible cabling (or actually no cabling at all) and of course you want to have a router with the best and innovative software package available to provide the right insight, access and support to the vessel and their network.
As result, the data-usage in the first weeks is already 4 times bigger than expected and 8 times bigger than the previous solution due to the quality and reliability of the network!
Peplink’s InControl2 ticks all the boxes! With incontrol2 and the build-in captive portal we provide all the necessary insights, support and access. We even customized the splash page of the captive portal in the look and feel from the customer which gives the user the feeling that they are in the office, while at sea. And, the customer can see all his vessels and their performance on this own telephone with the InControl2 app, so the information between us, the customer and the vessel is aligned like never before.
In total, 25 vessels will be equipped with the Peplink solution in a period of 2 months. The customer has his own IT department, so they came with the network diagram and are aware of all technical aspects of the solution. We assist in monitoring the network pro-active and we support the IT department with adjustments in the network within the GUI of Peplink’s InControl2.