Inmarsat opens new Norwegian office in ‘year of digitalisation’

The official opening of a new office at the Norwegian Maritime Competence Center (NMCC) in Ålesund, Norway, signals the company’s latest initiative as it drives the process of digitalising global shipping.

The London-listed company continues to sign up new FX customers, both directly and through its Certified Applications Provider (CAP) programme. Spithout reveals that more than 3,000 installations have been completed since the FX service was launched in March 2016. Altogether, the company has more than 10,000 installation commitments. Despite boosting its own connection service with more engineers, making the most of third party partners, and using CAP installers where possible, demand for FX is such that there is still a significant installation pipeline.

The choice of Ålesund for the company’s new facility has been carefully considered. Inmarsat already had a significant presence there, but the NMCC is a key member of the leading maritime and offshore cluster which brings together academics, technology developers, designers, builders and operators.

Located within the Norwegian University of Science and Technology campus, the cluster is a focus for Norway’s digitalisation drive and a strategy to extend connectivity across marine assets in commercial shipping and offshore marine business. Digitalisation will also pave the way for more effective ship management, maintenance, and ship automation’s as data analytics are increasingly used to achieve more effective real-time decision making.

Spithout stresses the importance of the company’s CAP programme in which partners use application-triggered bandwidth to provide apps that aid ship operating efficiency, crew welfare, IT and security, and regulatory compliance. “In addition to creating new revenue streams for partners, application-triggered bandwidth allows users to choose to dedicate connectivity to specific efficiency measures, or for the application to trigger bandwidth dynamically and transparently,” he explains.

To keep pace with rapidly rising bandwidth demand, Inmarsat is raising the productivity of existing satellites whilst also preparing to launch a new constellation of more powerful ones. The first two I-6 satellites, due to be launched in 2020 and 2021, will have twice the capacity of the company’s latest I-5 units, the fifth of which is due to go into space in 2019.

Spithout believes that the vast majority of ships will be connected, probably well within the next ten years, as global shipping becomes a more efficient and closely managed link in the global supply chain. “There is no reason for ships not to be connected,” he said, “as the industry becomes more efficient, greener and fully integrated with other transport modes in the logistics chain.”

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