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shipznet
www.shipz.net
shipznet is in the business of offering solutions for ship-to-shore communications and provides a suite of products designed for commercial vessels, cruise ships and yachts. Based in Germany, the company has been supporting its customers with mobile broadband solutions and services for almost a decade.
MC Series module
Ship-to-shore communications is critical for both crews and passengers. For crews who may need access to suppliers for assistance or documentation, or for passengers wanting to share emails, photos and videos, there is the need for a solution beyond very expensive and low bandwidth satellite communications. shipznet is in the business of offering solutions for these requirements and provides a suite of products designed for commercial vessels, cruise ships and yachts. Based in Germany, the company has been supporting its customers with mobile broadband solutions and services for almost a decade.
Ship-to-shore communications has typically been difficult and expensive. Whether aboard a commercial vessel, a yacht or a cruise ship, fast and reliable connectivity is needed for a wide range of applications – from operations to passenger emails. As more and more information is stored online and in the cloud, being able to connect to a network becomes critical. Until recently, satellite communications had been the only option supporting these requirements, but satellite communications is typically slow and expensive. shipznet saw an opportunity to provide a high-speed mobile broadband service for vessels and set out to develop an easy-to-install solution that ensures reliable and secure communication.
We have worked with Sierra Wireless for over 10 years, so we knew that Sierra’s global presence and pre-certified modules, along with excellent engineering resources, would help to speed up our time-to market.
Claudia Bobzin
Managing Director, shipznet
The company developed the shipznet RA300 to both be easy to configure and install into vessels. The shipznet RA300 includes two 4G LTE-A modems specialized for maritime usage in an antenna radome, with very short antenna cables, a below-deck router with six SIM slots for the customer’s choice of SIM cards, and up to 300 Mbit/sec bandwidth. The equipment can be easily installed by the customer, and once installed, shipznet provides a fully managed service. The service offers broadband connectivity for up to 60 kilometers of shore and operator selection based on GPS position. Therefore, shipznet’s solution offers its customers higher bandwidth, lower latency and more value for money. After looking at a variety of vendors for wireless connectivity, shipznet decided to work with Sierra Wireless because the solution they offered was the most competitive, while taking all the various requirements of the application into account. The company selected the Sierra Wireless MC7455 embedded module because it provides LTE-A access to global networks.
With the shipznet RA300, shipznet customers now have reliable mobile broadband near-shore. Onboard crews can exchange photos and videos, view technical drawings, retrieve parts catalogs and have instant video communications with qualified personnel from onboard the vessel. “It can take many days or weeks to bring competent service teams on board, so our customers are very happy to have a back-up option when the satellite connection fails or is not allowed,” explained Ms Bobzin. The RA300 was launched in March 2019 and has now been deployed in commercial vessels worldwide.
The high performance product and excellent support we received from Sierra Wireless throughout our development of the RA300 enabled us to complete our project
in under 6 months and deliver a product to our customers that they can rely on.
Claudia Bobzin
Managing Director, shipznet
shipznet
EMEA
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© Sierra Wireless. All rights reserved.