Surf the web at sea

Sailors traversing the world’s oceans may have a new communications weapon at their disposal in the form of secure, high-speed internet access.

Results from EUREKA project E!3194 FORCE8 suggest bottlenecks that hindered high-speed internet services, video conferencing and the transfer of large volumes of data at sea might finally be resolved.

Securely transferring information through high-speed satellite links and internet connections, as well as image streaming and conferencing, could prove essential to naval ships or research and surveillance vessels.

Until now, accessing broadband satellite internet links on the high seas has been beset by problems, with low connection speeds and the capacity for only small amounts of data transfer.

The FORCE8 project partners said the only currently available communication solution at sea is provided by INMARSAT, which is often expensive and lacks sufficient bandwidth and only a small number of independent operators such as Canada’s TELESAT offer some Internet Protocol (IP) based services.