Speedcast on board with connectivity for P&O maritime logistics

P&O Maritime Logistics has inked a multi-year contract with communications and IT services provider Speedcast to manage communications onboard 59 of its support vessels operating around three continents and 12 countries across the globe.

Boasting over 180 years of marine heritage, P&O Maritime Logistics is a provider of marine offerings with a focus on offshore energy, port services and cargo transport. The company owns and operates approximately 400 vessels and provides a portfolio of value-added marine services.

The company said it has the ability to integrate these offerings with customers’ operations. In the energy industry, the company claims a focus on supporting the development and production phases of the energy lifecycle, primarily in shallow water with activities driven by predictable operational and capital expenditure of sanctioned development projects, rather than discretionary and oil price-related, early cycle projects.

Speedcast will deploy its latest Sigma management and edge computing platform onboard to create a software-automated network comprised of geostationary earth orbit (GEO) and low earth orbit (LEO) very small aperture terminal (VSAT), 5G and L-band services, delivering what it said would be the highest service experience and reliability.

Sigma will operate proprietary P&O Maritime Logistics applications as virtual machines, as well as introducing the latest Speedcast applications such as next-generation firewalling, enhanced crew internet and critical voice and remote access.

With the new technology, Speedcast said P&O Maritime Logistics will benefit from the latest version of cloud-native, re-engineered software housed on server-grade appliances capable of running enterprise-grade software defined-wide area network (SD-WAN) and other containerised applications.

The Sigma Ecosystem will manage access to Speedcast’s global networks across GEO, MEO, LEO and L-band satellite and LTE, microwave and fibre. The cloud-based platform provides network optimisation and intelligent path selection, load balancing, link prioritisation and monitoring, and application steering. Its SD-WAN software continuously monitors network paths for availability, throughput and quality of service, prioritising using factors ranging from cost to latency, and automatically routing traffic through the best path.

In addition to working to offer best performance regardless of location or weather, Sigma also looks to make the most efficient use of bandwidth, and enable reduction in total capacity and cost.

Commenting on the deployment, Kris Vedat, head of technology and logistics at P&O Maritime Logistics, said: “We look forward to partnering with Speedcast to ensure the highest efficiency of our globally dispersed logistics fleet. This agreement solidifies our confidence in the Speedcast team to deliver on our connectivity requirements and speaks to the complementary technology goals our organisations both hold for achieving operational success.”

Speedcast vice-president of commercial maritime Andre Eerland added: “P&O Maritime Logistics is a leading provider of critical logistics support and marine solutions for offshore energy, port services and cargo transportation. We believe they selected Speedcast over the incumbent service provider because we offer the most extensive network, the technical and personnel support infrastructure, and the market-leading software toolset designed for the needs of the maritime sector.”