US company, Iridium Satellite LLC has announced the availability of its global satellite voice and data communications solution for affordable crew calling services to the maritime industry. Iridium's crew calling program simultaneously supports pre-paid calling for individual crew members and subscription services for a vessel's official communications. The new crew calling solution allows both official and personal communications from a single phone whilst eliminating the need for the tracking of calls and the manual processing of bills to support both functions. The crew calling plan delivers one of the most affordable communications options to the maritime market today with flat rate prising and no roaming or zone charges and truly global coverage.
Quadrant Iridium Limited has a 16% interest in the US company, Iridium Holdings LLC, the holding company for Iridium Satellite LLC. Following is the text of a press release made by Iridium Satellite LLC today. Also included is the text from an article from Lloyds of London Press Limited dealing with telephone calls made by crew members whilst on board ship.
P MacLeod COMPANY SECRETARY
PRESS RELEASE
IRIDIUM SATELLITE LLC INTRODUCES CREW CALLING SERVICES FOR THE MARITIME MARKET
NEW OFFERING DELIVERS AFFORDABLE, UBIQUITOUS CREW COMMUNICATIONS
ARLINGTON, Virginia. - April 22, 2002 Iridium Satellite LLC, the only provider of global voice and data communications, today announced the availability of affordable crew calling services for the maritime industry. In response to customer demand for more cost effective and efficient ways to manage on-ship call operations, Iridium's crew calling solution simultaneously supports pre-paid calling for individual crew members and subscription services for a vessel's official communications. The new service simplifies the burdensome task of managing fleet communications costs.
Iridium's new crew calling program allows vessel owners and operators to provide both official and personal communications from a single phone. Vessel operators can provide pre-paid scratch cards to individual crew members to allow for personal calling, while eliminating the arduous process of tracking those costs. For official business, the captain and crew can use the same phone for subscription-based calls. This eliminates the need to manually process complicated bills or to purchase additional equipment to support the two functions.
"By reducing the administrative burden of monitoring each crew member's calls, this new platform of services will help shipping businesses cut back on operating expenditures while providing an affordable convenience that benefits crew morale and productivity," said Charlene King, executive vice president for marketing and channel management at Iridium Satellite. "While prohibitive costs and complicated pricing schemes have limited the use of other satellite systems for crew calling purposes, Iridium's affordable, flat-rate pricing makes it ideal for crew morale programs."
The crew calling plan offers the same global, flat rate pricing that is the basis for all of Iridium Satellite's services. With no roaming or zone charges and some of the lowest prices available for satellite calls, the crew calling plan delivers one of the most affordable and flexible communications options available to the maritime market today, and the only one with truly global coverage.
Beginning immediately, Iridium will offer the new crew calling services through its global network of service providers. The initial service providers include GloCall, Stratos, European Datacomm, Road post, Global Plus, Global Satellite, Infosat, Marconi, World Communications Center, GeoLink, Fibertel, Marlink and AST.
02 APRIL 2002 UK: DIARY...AB, PHONE HOME.
SENDING out a team of clipboard-armed, middle-class, middle-aged ladies to ask ships' crews about their calling habits was always going to lead to some tricky moments and so it proved.
A report by Gilmour Research, commissioned by Inmarsat to find out the size of the crew calling market, makes fascinating reading, an insight into the lives of working seafarers and where they keep their mobile phones. The clipboard ladies, donning hardhats and fluorescent vests over the perms and twin-sets, descended on docks and climbed gangways. In Singapore they were almost arrested as stowaways, in the Netherlands they were scrutinised by suspicious customs and immigration and on one ship coitally interrupted a master in his cabin who, tucking his shirt-tails in, bawled at the first officer to throw them off the ship or arrest them as stowaways, "as he saw fit". Forced to drink industrial-strength tea with condensed milk out of tin mugs, the Hyacinth Buckets stuck gamely to the task and by the end had interviewed 125 masters, 131 officers and 347 crew. The report does not say whether any of the ladies had shipboard romantic flings or ended up marrying an interviewee but it wouldn't surprise us.
Among the findings were that only 4% of ships visited had dedicated crew calling gear but six out 10 crew had mobile phones, even on tankers where the report says they should not be allowed because of the risks of static electricity. Crew confessed to hiding them and one officer pulled his out of a pocket and admitted in front of the master he'd had it on board for two years. Sadly, the report by partner' Carl contains a glaring error that our gimlet eye spotted. It takes a figure of $100 a month for average crewman spend on calls and then multiplies it by 1.8m, a figure for the total seafarer population derived from the ITF (a bit on the high side, we think) and arrives at $1.8bn a year as the total annual spend. Er, no it doesn't (work it out!).
Meanwhile, the bad news for Inmarsat is that owners and managers are responding to the call for more crew communications facilities by putting rival Iridium phones on ships, they're so much cheaper.
(c)of Lloyd's of London Press Limited 2002.
ends - AAP
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