CATSAT

Oceanpost

DocSea

GECDIS

Ship owners, whether merchant marine or fishing orientated, have seen their requirements for data communication steadily grow over the past few years, and this trend should continue in the future. The TCP/IP suite of protocols, with its most used applications, e-mail and web browsing, has become a common communication tool for any shipping company or for ship owners. Indeed, a company Intranet with external access to the general Internet backbone has become an essential productivity tool.

It is therefore essential for ship owners to have their vessels become an integral part of their internal TCP/IP network. This results in increasing data transmission between the vessels and the shores. Consequently, ship owners must have the appropriate tools enabling them to manage this increased data flow without having their (satellite) communication costs spinning out of control.

Unfortunately, the TCP/IP suite of protocols has, of course, originally been conceived as a tool to be used over the cheap terrestrial landlines. In its various applications, and in particular in the e-mail applications, its overhead can be very large relative to the amount of user data to be transferred. Also, as everyone who has been using a standard e-mail program (Outlook, Eudora, etc.) knows well, the transmission of e-mails is half-duplex after the connection has been established: outgoing e-mails first, followed by the reception of incoming e-mails. This is due to the sheer nature of some of the protocols of the TCP/IP suite (in this particular case, the PPP). Since the vessels use satellite communication means (Inmarsat, Iridium, Emsat) to transfer their data traffic, the communication costs can quickly become extremely high.

OceanPost, developed by GEOLINK, solves both of these problems:

• the ship owner is able to manage in an orderly way the data traffic between his vessels and the shore (or even between vessels themselves),
  
• satellite communication costs for data transmission remain under control.

OceanPost enables the ship owner's vessel(s) to be part of its corporate Intranet. Various access rights are defined for the crew (for instance, the Captain may have full access rights whereas the ordinary seamen will only have limited access rights) and identify who can use in which way the data service aboard the ship (access to the Intranet only, access to the general Internet, etc.).

In practice, the person with the adequate access rights defines the time(s) of the day when data transmission will occur between the vessel and the shore. These times might be different for each day of the week. At the pre-defined time slots, all the on-board stored data are exchanged with the corresponding on-shore server. These data can be of any nature (e-mail, date files, etc.).

However, for this satellite transmission, instead of the TCP/IP suite of protocols, a full-duplex optimised protocol is systematically used, thereby allowing on average for a typical mix of e-mails and data files more than a 50% decrease in the size of the data transferred as compared with TCP/IP, and an even higher decrease in transmission time, since this transmission protocol allows the use of the full-duplex capability of the satellite terminals.

This OceanPost specific data transmission protocol also compresses the users' data. This protocol can thus be characterized by the three following features that the traditional TCP/IP suite of protocols does not support:

• nearly no protocol overhead
• data compression
• full duplex

Once all the data have been exchanged, the satellite communication is automatically terminated. The whole process is fully automated (establishment of the satellite communication, data transfer, termination of the satellite communication).

In case of a communication error or failure during data transfer between the vessel and the shore, OceanPost will automatically re-try (possibly re-establishing the satellite communication), starting where the failure happened, and not, like TCP/IP-based e-mail sessions, from the beginning of the whole data transfer. Logs are provided to the person with the adequate access rights; these logs include all the necessary detailed information that the ship owner needs to monitor his satellite communication costs in near real-time.

Of course, the person with the adequate access right can "force" an immediate connection, not at the pre-defined times of transmission, in case of emergency.

OceanPost comes with an on-shore based server that can be located in the ship owner's premises (or elsewhere) and is then plugged in its Intranet (in practice its LAN). This server is just a black box with no screen or keyboard. On-board each ship, a similar equipment is connected to the vessel's LAN (or, if there is only one PC on board, directly to the PC).

OceanPost registered users continue to use their own PCs as they normally usually do (e-mail, data file transfer, etc;); the OceanPost servers take care of everything, including the conversion/de-conversion of TCP/IP protocols to the satellite data transmission protocol: OceanPost is totally transparent to its users, and no additional "computer" training is required. Remote configuration and maintenance of OceanPost is possible by the ship owner from the shore.

The simplicity of the installation, use and maintenance of OceanPost by a designated "OceanPost manager" , its reliability thanks to its very simple and elegant concept and realization, and the commercial terms proposed by GEOLINK, give OceanPost a strong competitive edge over similar systems.

Finally, OceanPost, in spite of its brand name, is also applicable to terrestrial customers, for instance large companies with several satellite terminals in remote places; indeed, a special section of the French army has already selected OceanPost.