Inmarsat has received approval from the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) to use its Fleet Safety solution as a new service to support the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS).
The approval has enabled ship owners and operators to combine maritime safety and broadband data services in a single FleetBroadband or Fleet One terminal platform provided by Inmarsat.
The existing FleetBroadband or Fleet One customers will also have access to GMDSS-approved safety services, as well as various innovative safety features exclusively available through the Inmarsat Fleet Safety system by adding a Maritime Safety Terminal (MST).
This will help Inmarsat to create a new generation of stand-alone terminals that will eventually incorporate both FleetBroadb and MST into a single device and deliver higher speeds data in excess of 1Mbps to the customers.
Fleet Safety, which is designed to help save the lives of seafarers, features a new web-based version of SafetyNET, SafetyNET II, the global system for broadcasting and automatic reception of Maritime Safety Information (MSI) and search-and-rescue (SAR) communications.
The service is expected to be delivered using the existing Inmarsat-4 constellation and the new Inmarsat-6 satellites, the first of which is scheduled to be launched by 2020.
Inmarsat Maritime president Ronald Spithout said: “Fleet Safety is the most significant advance in maritime safety services since the introduction of GMDSS in 1999 and restates our commitment to maintaining and improving safety services for the maritime industry.”
IMO has also granted a conditional approval to global satellite service provider Iridium for the launch of a GMDSS service on its network.
The Iridium GMDSS service, which is expected to be launched by the early 2020s, is subject to the successful completion of a number of performance tests.
