Happy New Year from the team of maritime cellular communications and maritime connectivity experts here at Telecom26. We hope that you managed to rejuvenate and re-energise for what will be a busy year, on-land, on-water - and in-air.
For global supply chains, the problems created by COVID continue. Indeed the system is “still in chaos” as The Economist outlines in this recent piece Why supply-chain snarls still entangle the world; Shipping delays show little sign of easing
Goods are still “lingering at sea and shop shelves bare around the world” with “up to 15% of the global container fleet currently sitting at anchor outside the world’s ports”.
Labour shortages are getting worse as people isolate; China is closing port terminals as soon as COVID appears (again).
Coupled with these shipping problems is the fact that demand for goods is soaring: “the value of merchandise goods exported from China to America was 5% greater in the first six months of 2021 compared with 2019, before the pandemic”.
This perfect storm which means that the cost of shipping goods has increased ten-fold over the past two years. And, as we discussed in this earlier blog, 619 new container ships are on-order but will do little to ease the backlog of freight as these ships will take years to build.
Maritime Connectivity - How It’s Evolving To Meet Today’s Challenges
Back in March 2020 just as COVID started to spread worldwide, we wrote this piece examining how maritime cellular connectivity is evolving to meet new needs and demands.
With ships now being asked to wait far out at sea to reduce port congestion, and subsequently journey times increasing, our predictions for maritime connectivity ring truer than ever.
Maritime connectivity for crews
The Economist again was ahead of the curve in highlighting how and why 250,000 merchant sailors were stranded at sea as COVID continued to spread worldwide. With labour shortages across the merchant shipping industry, providing fast, reliable and cost-effective communications for crews to stay in touch with their loved ones is now an on-board essential for fleet owners.
Maritime cellular connectivity for the ship OS
Radio coverage for ship operations and safety remains critical. That’s not going to change, but ships are evolving to include more autonomous processes and more accurate systems monitoring. These require maritime cellular connectivity, which must usually be prioritised over other data flows that use the same capacity.
Maritime connectivity for devices including smart containers
We’ve discussed before how the rollout of Smart Containers and other IoT devices on-board will need reliable maritime connectivity.
Freight and container vessels will soon be conveying literally millions of devices in each cargo that will need to connect to the internet to report on different measurements and local conditions. While not all of this data flow will be essential, it still has to be managed.
Telecom26’s Maritime Cellular Communications and Maritime Connectivity Services
We are a maritime mobile operator and providing always-available voice and data connectivity for vessels of all shapes and sizes is one of Telecom26’s core services.
Whether it’s a ship travelling from China to Europe laden with containers, or a sunny Sunday on a yacht, our Global Roaming Service - which uses maritime cellular communications and maritime connectivity - is all that’s needed to stay connected.
The size of the vehicles, their cargo and the number of seafarers might be widely different but they have a few things in common. They are tired of exorbitant roaming charges. Tired of having to change SIMs or switch phones when they cross borders. Tired of patchy service. Tired of multiple bills from different providers.
Our Global SIMs provide a very simple way to provide data to all onboard devices via cellular data links. By onboard devices we mean Wi-Fi routers, container sensors, IoT networks and any system process that needs to connect to the internet, to a remote server or monitor.
If you’d lke to read more than please download our complimentary new paper
- Nearshore Services A short guide to nearshore cellular services
And, if you’d like to discuss how our maritime connectivity and maritime cellular communications services can help improve efficiency on-board, at-sea and in-port then please get in touch.
