Maritim solutions

As a sailor, it is essential to have emergency commu­ni­ca­tions on board. Depending on the region, various satellite phones offer themselves as a basic device. Iridium and Thuraya satellite phones also allow a setup as a data modem and a connection to a computer or smart­phone. This allows emails or Grib files for weather data to be retrieved. In an emergency, a satellite phone can easily be taken into the life raft.

Iridium satellite phones
With the Iridium 9575 Extreme, Iridium 9555 as well as the Iridium GO! the data rate of up to 2.4kbps is very low. However, it is suffi­cient for pure text emails or Grib files. In connection with the Iridium GO! Iridium offers an unlimited data tariff plan. Thus, the monthly fees are capped and no nasty surprises await you. The con of the Iridium GO! is that you will also always need a smart­phone or tablet to use it. If you have to go to the life raft, you will have to take the GO! and smart­phone with you.

Iridium GO! exec
This second gener­ation of the GO! has been improved in many ways: The Iridium GO! exec uses the Iridium Certus 100 datarate = 88 kbit/s download and 22 kbit/s upload. You get direct internet access (IP data) and not only special GO! apps. Phone calls are possible directly on the device due to touch screen as well as built-in micro­phone and speaker, so you don’t need a salt water prone smart­phone anymore in case of emergency.

Thuraya satellite phones
In the Mediter­ranean, for example, Thuraya phones can also be used to retrieve data with a data rate of 60/15 kbps (download/upload). Data transfer is signif­i­cantly cheaper with Thuraya than with Iridium. Thuraya charges per MB, Iridium per minute.

Inmarsat satellite phones
The Inmarsat IsatPhone2 does not offer the possi­bility of data transfer.

Professional solutions for fixed installation

In addition to mobile phones, there are solutions that offer signif­i­cantly higher data rates of up to 700 kbps and, in some cases, multiple telephone lines. With these systems you have access to the internet and email in good quality.

An Inmarsat FleetOne system offers 150kbps (download/upload) with a contract of only one month minimum duration.

Inmarsat Fleet­BroadBand devices offers 250 or 500kbps (download/upload) respec­tively, but the devices are quite large relative to the new Iridium Certus devices.

The Iridium Certus devices Intellian C700, Thales VesseLINK 700 or Cobham Sailor 4300 offer up to 700/300 kbps (download/upload) data rate.

Small and performant with 176kbps (download/upload) is the Iridium Certus Thales VesseLINK 200 system with up to three telephone lines and integrated firewall, which protects you from unwanted data traffic.

For systems without a firewall, we also offer an external hardware firewall. To protect you from unwanted costs, we can also set up alerts when a MByte limit set by you is exceeded: You will then either receive a notifi­cation by email, or the card will be blocked for further data traffic. Multiple limits are also possible: at 20 MByte “only” a notifi­cation will come, at 50 MByte a notifi­cation will come and the card will be blocked for further data traffic.