Ship Equip reports that it has reached the milestone of having 1,000
VSAT systems now in operation, an announcement that coincides with its
first deliveries of XpressLink systems, which include a free upgrade to
Inmarsat's Global Xpress Ka-band service when it is launched in 2013.
Ship Equip had already announced the 1,000th order for its VSAT services
in June of this year, with that system now operational. This has been
acheived in approximately eight years since the company was launched in
2003, before being acquired by Inmarsat in 2011.
“As the acceptance of VSAT caught on, we took a decision to plan for
large numbers of customers,” said Ship Equip COO, Esben Flo.
“The only way to do that was to simplify and standardise the product, while allowing for customisation in the setup.”
Ship Equip's approach to this was to put all the electronics into a five
unit rack, with a 12 inch colour touch screen as interface, and
standardise the set-up on one stabilised antenna. Mr Flo believes that,
as growth increased, this turned out to be a key strategy to handle the
increase in installation volume.
“When the majority of our orders contain the same components it is much
easier to scale the volume quickly. The remaining challenge then to
achieve a successful delivery is to get access to the ship in a port,”
he said.
Ship Equip now estimates that, based on external market reports, around
10 per cent of the maritime market has already installed VSAT, and
expects that this will continue to increase.
Thedigitalship