The first regional maritime launch partner, Arion, will focus on delivering Iridium Certus to the Asian market.
These commitments allow each company to deliver a new choice in the maritime industry and offer what will soon become the market's fastest L-band satellite connectivity, Iridium claimed.
Offering a high-performing, competitively priced solution, Iridium Certus is designed to meet the needs of the ‘connected ship.' Operating on small-form-factor terminals with solid-state, active-array antennas, the service will enable more efficient business operations, cost-effective crew welfare solutions, and safety communications, while providing a pole-to-pole, truly global grid for Internet of Things (IoT) smart ship applications, the company said.
Already undergoing live testing, Iridium Certus terminals built by Cobham and Thales will debut at speeds of 352 Kbps, later upgradable to 704 Kbps through a firmware update. With eventual speeds reaching around 1.4 Mbps, Iridium Certus will also enable multiple streaming and safety services designed to provide reliable connectivity in even the harshest environments.
Marlink is a long-time Iridium partner and will offer Iridium Certus as both a standalone service and as a companion to VSAT.
"We combine the industry's most extensive portfolio of technology-agnostic multi-band connectivity services and value-added solutions with a consultative approach to address client needs," said Ghani Behloul, chief marketing officer, Marlink. "Our long-term, non-exclusive alliances and commercial collaborations with satellite operators ensure we can deliver future-proof solutions, and we look forward to continuing our work with Iridium in order to bring the benefits of its next generation network to our global customer base."
"The uniqueness of Iridium Certus' reliability and the unmatched global coverage expands our managed services portfolio, bringing a new choice to our tailored solutions for the maritime industry," said Tim Bailey, Speedcast’s executive vice president, products, marketing and business development. "The innovation in L-band broadband throughput which Iridium Certus promises, will address a wide range of services for the shipowner, and complements our broad portfolio of high-end, customised solutions we deliver today."
"In today's ‘bring-your-own-device' world, managing communications on board vessels is critical," said Mark Sykes, director, The AST Group. "AST's unique suite of value-added services, combined with Iridium Certus, will deliver unprecedented capabilities to maximize efficiency and reduce costs at sea."
"Iridium's signature full global coverage, coupled with the enhanced capacity and speed of Iridium Certus, has created a real buzz in the marketplace," said Graeme Gordon, global commercial director, Satcom Global. "We're excited to bring this new service to our diverse maritime customer base."
Enabled by the $3 bill Iridium NEXT satellite constellation, Iridium Certus will provide high-definition voice capabilities, alongside broadband functionality, worldwide.
"Iridium Certus is creating a marketplace that brings choice and innovation, which is something the industry has been craving," said Wouter Deknopper, Iridium’s vice president and general manager of maritime. "For many years we have been listening to the market, and we know that mariners are often forced to sacrifice quality for bandwidth, or vice versa, due to high prices. But soon we will be delivering a standardised solution that helps solve this persistent issue. Iridium Certus is a game changer and is directly responding to the feedback we hear from our industry partners and customers."
Iridium Certus is planned to go commercially live in the middle of this year, and Iridium plans to announce additional maritime service providers in the coming weeks.