Wade4Wireless

Private Wireless Use Cases for Ships


To be clear, ships connect to land using satellites now. I think Starlink may improve the connection and is being considered. However, when they get close to land they like to connect to a terrestrial network so latency is lower and throughput is normally better. With the rollout of Starlink and other LEO satellites that philosophy may change.

Ships already have several wireless networks on them. They may have LoRa, Wi-Fi, 2 way, trunked radios, and so on. What they really want is a  way to add 4G or 5G and do network slicing. The reason for this is that they want a slice dedicated to safety and another for video. They no longer want to run wires everywhere. They also want their customers to be able to connect all across the ship. Oh, they charge for the access today. It’s a revenue stream.

So let’s look at what they use it for.

  1. On board voice communication networks for the crew. This is already a thing and seems to be growing as communication systems evolve. The crew wants a priority channel that is not affected by the passengers because they want instantaneous communications. Usually Push-to-Talk is what they want. 
  2. On board broadband networks for the crew is already happening as they get the budget money for this. The company likes it because it’s secure and a separate network from the passengers using Wi-Fi. As long as the backhaul has connectivity then you can connect. While this will be tough on the larger cruise ships, the smaller ships and container ships. They will want a constant connection at all times for security and tracking. On the ship, a network that can connect video alongside devices will be very valuable. They also want the crew to be able to talk to each other because container ships are huge.
  3. Oil Rig to ship connectivity is a real thing. I have worked on solutions putting WiMAX and PLTE networks on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The idea is to connect boats and ships when they’re in range of the oil rigs. The oil rigs are connected to satellites and to each other using microwave hops. It’s a pretty cool network. It should also open you up to the possibility that there are many ways to connect ships.
  4. Passenger communications could become a thing if they figure out a few things. For one, how to connect to the real world. Probably still needs to be done via satellite, but as LEO systems become readily available, think Starlink, it will be easier to do. The other factor is how to charge for it. The company wants a return not their investment. They also need to know if people would pay for an onboard network. I think today they would. However, remember that on a ship the Wi-Fi network is key. However on yachts they rely heavily on these networks to stay in touch. However, to connect the rooms on board with a private network would be pretty awesome. To be able to call back to the room from anywhere on the ship would be pretty cool.
  5. Video is the key thing. To be able to put cameras anywhere there is a signal saves a lot of time. Granted, they may still need power, but the power could be overcome with solar and batteries. Video can be used to monitor the ship’s edge, people still fall into the water. It can be for security and for crowd control. Security is a key factor for video. Also, think of the remote monitoring of the ship, if someone is remotely keeping an eye on things, it may help reduce the staff or if there is an attack on the  ship, remote teams can be alerted immediately. They can track the issue in real time while deploying help. 
  6. Remote monitoring and control is another thing that people often overlook because they think it takes satellites to do this, and it does. But, don’t forget what you need on the ship to make that happen. I just mentioned the video use case for ships, well, the IOT model is alive and well. You can use LoRa and BLE to connect the devices locally but they need to be fed to the larger network, maybe with Wi-Fi or with PLTE/P5G. No matter how you connect the controls, alarms, and cameras, they need to be fed back to the world wide control center. This is becoming more and more important to Ships. Not just for cruise lines but for the shipping companies as well. They have minimal staff monitoring and they could get hijacked. Since they are alone on the water with limited ways to call for help, this is a solution. If they can be monitored on and around the boat, using whatever means necessary, maybe we can save some lives. 
  7. Drones for remote workers to make inspections as well as the crew to look ahead of the ship. I think they should have a set of drones where a command center could remotely release the drones for an unannounced site inspection in case they need to validate something, anything from safety to a hijacking. It would allow the remote team to understand exactly what is happening, even if the ship is sinking. The local crew could use it if they feel there is danger close to the ship. 
  8. Remote maintenance would be where the crew can send the alarms and a video of the problems back to an expert that is on land to troubleshoot and repair a problem in real time. This would allow the experts to see what’s going on as well as evaluate the alarms, all from a NOC somewhere.
  9. Preventative maintenance is another use case I talk about all the time. The idea is if the NOC can collect data and predict what may fail due to the way something is working or vibrating, then you could predict failures and do a planned outage versus reactive repairs. 

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