Radio Holland goes broadband: CONNECTOR

In 2005, Radio Holland Connect, the satcom competence centre within the Radio Holland Group, introduced broadband satellite services. We felt the maritime market would be well served with an ‘always on’ connection, which is key for their business processes. Land based industries had already experienced the always-on connection by using leased lines or (A)DSL. The fact that the maritime industry would also experience the benefit from amongst others a fixed fee per month and easily transferring and processing (large) quantities of data, would eventually trigger them to invest in an ‘always on’ connection. Today, use of broadband services in the maritime industry is growing. Next to business reasons, there is another very important reason why shipping companies started to become interested: crew welfare. One of the tools to keep crew happy is to offer them (free) internet access. A recent success story of VSAT is the decision by BP to install VSAT’s on its entire tanker fleet of 50 vessels.