MARITIME NEWS
FACES FREQUENTIS@BAPCO, LONDON
Issue 01
06-2009
MARITIME NEWSLETTER
DEAR READER, Recent succes
Frequentis Maritime is proud to publish the first Frequentis Maritime Newsletter for the maritime community. Thanks to our numerous successes and activities within the field, we’re seeing increasing interest in our maritime communication and information solutions. These solutions help our customers fulfil their mission by guaranteeing the highest standards for ever-growing safety and security needs. This newsletter contains market news, company news and details of Frequentis solutions, reference projects and recent successes. We’d also like to use each edition to introduce you to some members of our maritime team. We hope you’ll find plenty of information relevant to your business and interests. Please feel free to contact us for further details on any topic: we’d also value your feedback on the newsletter. Best regards, Johann Schweiger Director Frequentis Maritime
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WILHELM HARDER, AREA SALES MANAGER Willy takes care of sales and marketing activities in the Benelux countries, Eastern Europe and Central America. “Officer” Willy is currently working on business solutions for some RIS and Blue Border projects.
The Frequentis Booth at BAPCO, London 2009
Frequentis Maritime recently put in its second BAPCO appearance, with a booth at the 2009 event in London, April 22nd to 23rd. Both customer interest and our presentations focused on new communication and information solutions for the maritime environment. Contributing to safety at sea is one of the company’s core concerns. Visitors were particularly taken by our demonstrations of applications that help authorities increase situational awareness. The latest developments concerning enhancements to the human-machine interface also attracted considerable attention. We look forward to meeting you again at BAPCO 2010, April 20th to 22nd in London.
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DIPL. ING. GEORG ZSEMLA, SYSTEM DESIGN MANAGER As our “Board Engineer”, Georg is one of the cornerstones of our maritime team. He has been responsible for presales and project implementation tasks since 2002, and is currently busy with projects in Spain and India.
MARITIME USER GROUP CONFERENCE “OFF TO NEW SHORES”
DISTRIBUTED OPERATIONAL CONTROL FOR A COUNTRYWIDE GMDSS SOLUTION IN SPAIN
IN AUGUST 2008, THE SPANISH MINISTRY OF DEVELOPMENT (THROUGH “MARINA MERCANTE”) ORDERED A MARITIME RESCUE COMMUNICATION SOLUTION FOR MONITORING SPANISH COASTAL WATERS. FREQUENTIS AND ITS PRIME CONTRACTOR, ABERTIS TELECOM, SUCCESSFULLY IMPLEMENTED THE GMDSS SYSTEM AHEAD OF SCHEDULE. THE ORDER INCLUDES A SERVICE CONTRACT FOR MONITORING SPANISH COASTAL WATERS FOR 4 YEARS.
Participants at the Maritime User Conference in Hamburg
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INGRID KNAUS, TEAM ASSISTANT Ingrid is our “fairy godmother”. She supports the entire maritime crew as an assistant, drawing on her long experience in Frequentis. She also plays a vital role in the organisation of our User Group Conference.
Frequentis hosted another Maritime User Group Conference from May 13th to May 15th. This year’s event took place in Hamburg. Customers from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Iran, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom discussed new and upcoming onshore communication and information needs for maritime authorities. There was a strong focus on the increased demands on navigational safety placed on maritime applications for port and coast authorities. Other topics covered included efficiency and security. A visit to the Hamburg Port Authority Control Centre was just one of the many highlights of this year’s conference. The next Frequentis Maritime User Group Conference will take place in spring 2010.
Abertis Telecom and Frequentis provide the Spanish Merchant Marine authorities (Marina Mercante) with communication services on VHF, MF and HF wavebands for all GMDSS zones. The two companies are also responsible for establishing and maintaining a network of coastal radio stations and maritime communication centres.
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FREQUENTIS AG, Innovationsstraße 1, A-1100 Vienna, Tel: +43/1/811 50-0, Fax: +43/1/811 50-5009
WWW.FREQUENTIS.COM
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The Marina Mercante contract includes responsibility for operational tasks, such as forwarding of distress calls to SASEMAR (the Spanish Society for Rescue and Safety at Sea), radio transmission of navigational warnings, and safety, emergency and radio medical services.
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This holds true irrespective of the identity of the service provider, whether state owned or run by a private company like Abertis Telecom. Day-to-day activities can be planned and organised efficiently, but the real difficulties arise when dealing with emergency situations (especially when you take that long Spanish coastline into account). The challenge is not just to have enough resources available with the appropriate experience and training, but also to have them in the area you need them, at the time you need them. As distress situations can occur at any time and resources are always limited, planning is important but also extremely difficult. In Spain, more than 200 VHF channels and 70 MF transmitters and receivers have to be managed from 6 centres on a 24/7 basis. For over ten years, networked communication systems from Frequentis have helped customers solve such operational challenges. Customers in Norway, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Iceland, India, etc. have mirrored their Spanish counterparts by choosing a GMDSS solution based on the Frequentis distributed operational control concept. Since becoming the first company to successfully implement a similar countrywide GMDSS system in Norway, Frequentis has had the chance to prove its networking capabilities in many emergency situations.
Distributed operational control means that operators from other control centres can support command centres during emergency situations by taking on some of the peak communication load. The level of support can range from assistance to equal operator rights, and even to a complete takeover of operations by the supporting centre. The user interfaces for these scenarios are embedded within the standard Frequentis operator console. This means the concept can be implemented without complicating system usability. This is an important advantage for the operator, since emergency situations always involve extreme working conditions.
FREQUENTIS MARITIME – A SUCCESS STORY
SINCE THE BUSINESS UNIT’S FOUNDATION IN 2003, FREQUENTIS MARITIME HAS ESTABLISHED ITSELF AS A RELIABLE AND POWERFUL MARITIME COMMUNICATION SYSTEM SUPPLIER FOR MARITIME, PORT AND RIVER AUTHORITIES.
Frequentis has completed numerous projects with prestigious partners and customers. These include major ports (such as Hamburg, London, Piraeus and Quatar’s Ras Laffan), the Kiel Channel Authority in Germany, Denmark’s Lyngby Radio, the Portuguese Coastguard (IPTM), Belgium’s MRCC Oostende, Spain’s Marina Mercante and SASEMAR, and VTS Taizhou/China. Johann Schweiger became head of the Frequentis Maritime Business Unit in January 2009. His many years of experience with safety- and mission-critical communication systems is helping the unit continue its year-on-year growth and success. Our maritime communication and information portfolio is designed for: > > > > > > Ports & Harbours River Information Services Vessel Traffic Services Maritime Search and Rescue Centres Coastal Radio Services Coastal Surveillances Services > increase efficiency and safety by optimising human-machine interfaces > offer decision support functionality to the operator > integrate additional features and services as thirdparty add-on solutions The Frequentis philosophy is to pay particular attention to the human-machine interface, thereby optimising the working environment to achieve the highest standards of usability. A whole research and development department is dedicated to driving the ongoing evolution of this usability. Frequentis user interfaces are tailored to meet the needs of individual user groups. In what can frequently be a stressful working environment, an integrated display featuring important information provides essential and life-saving decision support to an operator.
Abertis Telecom installed and now runs the VHF network of coastal stations, covering coastal waters to a range of at least 35 nautical miles. MF radio stations manage communications up to 150 nautical miles and HF stations offer an even greater coverage that includes the Canary Islands (West African coastline). The current contract is not the first order for Frequentis in the Spanish maritime market. The company recently supplied VTS communication solutions to SASEMAR, installing the systems in La Coruña, Tarifa, Tenerifa, Las Palmas, Bilbao and Gijon. However, the present implementation of a countrywide GMDSS is the largest project to date involving civilian shipping in Spain. Frequentis has therefore strengthened its position in the Spanish market significantly. INCREASED EFFICIENCY THROUGH DISTRIBUTED OPERATIONAL CONTROL CENTRES Spain has a coastline of almost 5,000 km and a huge sea area to cover. When running a modern countrywide GMDSS service, the key to success lies in both system availability and operational efficiency.
A VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION TO THE SAFETY OF LIFE AT SEA A safety incident can arise at any time. Another challenge is that different kinds of emergencies require different levels of support. The concept of distributed operational control provides access to a range of qualified resources and thus allows a fast and high quality response to any situation. It lets service providers increase service quality by training specialists and investing in a strong basic level of operator skills. With just a few specialists, the service provider can use the networked system to provide immediate and expert support relevant to the needs of the emergency in question. Both the service provider and the ship in distress benefit from greater operational efficiency, but also from increased service and system availability. Based on our successes, we at Frequentis believe that distributed operational centres represent a valuable contribution to the safety of life at sea and also bring important improvements to the financial well-being of our customers…now and in the future.
RECENT SUCCESS
> Together with prime contractor Sigma Wireless,
Frequentis Maritime has been selected to supply 3 MRCCs and supplementary systems for the Irish Coast Guard. The contract was signed in February 2009.
In addition to traditional communication capabilities, maritime projects now require telemetric functionality. Those projects being implemented in 2009 already include the next generation of Frequentis solutions: the so-called Tracking & Tracing system. This solution is based on a flexible and modular architecture designed specifically for the needs of the maritime control centre environment. It is able to integrate and intelligently combine different streams of data coming from different sources, whether a database, sensor or some other type of equipment. Tracking & Tracing can: > Use and offer a variety of functions, such as fairway, traffic and logistic information services, calamity abatement services, lock and bridge management, law enforcement services, and more > simplify operational tasks
> In March 2009, Frequentis was awarded another
important GMDSS project comprising 3 MRCCs, 36 radio systems and further complementary systems. This represents the company’s entrance into the Indian market.
> In May 2009 Frequentis signed the contract to
supply a turnkey solution for a River Information System for the River Transport Authority of Egypt.