Five Things You Need to Know About FlexMaritime Vantage

Read time: 3 mins.

In a recent Mobility Brief interview, Intelsat Senior Product Marketing Manager, Todd Cotts, spoke with Sumanth Dhananjaya, Senior Product Manager, to explore the benefits of the FlexMaritime Vantage service. This innovative solution complements Intelsat’s existing FlexMaritime GEO network. From enabling real-time data transmission to supporting critical communication needs, Intelsat’s solutions are delivering enhanced connectivity, unmatched reliability, and superior performance for maritime operators.

Hello, and thank you for taking a few minutes of your time today for Intelsat’s Mobility Brief, where we take a moment to provide an overview of Intelsat satellite solutions for connecting everything on the go: land, sea, and air.

I am Todd Cotts, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Intelsat’s Mobility Group. Joined by Intelsat’s Senior Product Manager for Maritime, Sumanth Dhananjaya.

Todd: Hi, Sumanth. Intelsat offers many new and exciting services for the commercial maritime industry today. One of those is FlexMaritime Vantage. Let’s talk about it.

What is FlexMaritime Vantage? And if a customer already has FlexMaritime, our flagship service, why would they be interested in this new service?

Sumanth: I’m very excited to be here and talk about our FlexMaritime Vantage service. FlexMaritime Vantage adds the choice of a second faster global satellite network to our existing FlexMaritime VNO service. Using the existing antenna on the vessel, the throughput speeds that are achievable are sixty by six megabits per second on a one-meter antenna.

Along with having reliable and consistent service with existing FlexMaritime network, data-hungry applications will now be able to access the second network via FlexMaritime Vantage, for high-speed applications, and crew welfare.

Todd: With FlexMaritime, you have the reliability and high-throughput network that we provide today. Now, we’re adding this new service that provides higher speeds in specific areas where that higher speed availability exists. This is great news for any customers using FlexMaritime today.

What extra equipment then is required to activate this faster service?

Sumanth: We have built an upgrade kit for two pieces of equipment. The first one is the satellite network arbitrator switch, SNAS in short.

The switch allows the user onboard to switch between the high-speed Vantage network or the resilient, always-available FlexMaritime network, the existing network. The second piece of equipment is the modem, which is used to connect to the FlexMaritime Vantage network. A bunch of cables help kickstart the connectivity between the ACU, the SNAS box, and the two modems.

Now, we expect most of the onboard crew to be able to handle the upgrade themselves. It is a very simple, straightforward process. We have included detailed instructions along with the upgrade kit, and they will be able to do that in a very short period.

Todd: That sounds great. When we discuss the installation of this upgrade kit, maybe we should go into a little more detail.

What is involved in the installation of this upgrade kit?

Sumanth:  Once the SNAS box is located close to the ACU and the existing modem, the installation, or the upgrade, involves removing the cables from the existing modem and connecting the SNAS box to the ACU and the two modems. Then, you’ve got the RF cables, which you need to connect between the modems, the ACU, etc. Data cables will be connected to the onboard equipment. Our NOC teams will be able to help do all the compression tests and bring the terminal online in a very short space of time.

Todd: Great. That sounds like a very simple installation process.

Did the customers get to keep the same terminal and the same antenna?

Sumanth:  Absolutely. They can use the same antenna. They don’t have to invest in a new antenna. There’s an existing antenna that they’re able to repurpose.

Todd: That’s great. It’s a competitive industry today. There are a lot of SATCOM solutions out there and a lot of opportunities for different services. So, the price always comes up. Let’s talk about this product’s service cost structure.

Sumanth:  We allow our solution partners to set the end-user pricing with any of our satellite connectivity products. And it is no different for FlexMaritime Vantage. The upgrade kit has a one-off cost, which has been priced very competitively. And the partner will be able to package for their end customers very economically. We have priced the FlexMaritime Vantage service based on a gigabyte or a volume consumption model. This is similar to what the competition is doing in the market today.

Todd: Well, I’m sure it’s good news for our solutions partners and their customers.

What are other options that Intelsat is offering today for higher speed connections?

Sumanth: We are introducing another solution, FlexMaritime Duo, which combines the LEO offering from OneWeb with our existing FlexMaritime GEO offering. So, what we bring to the market is ultra-low latency and higher throughput speeds coupled with high availability and consistency—a formidable combination.

Todd: Wow. FlexMaritime Vantage for higher speed service. FlexMaritime Duo is adding low-Earth orbit connectivity to the mix. We’re offering very exciting new solutions to the maritime industry today. Thank you to everybody who’s watching today.

More information about FlexMaritime Vantage and any of Intelsat’s mobility solutions.