MediaMobil Success-Story
German Tanker
For more than ten years, the shipping company German Tanker Shipping has been sourcing the communication for its 15 ships from MediaMobil. The main reason: the Multilink Gateways developed by MediaMobil itself ensure particularly stable and secure communication on board.
The client
German Tanker Shipping GmbH & Co. KG is a Bremen-based shipping company with 16 tankers for chemical primary products, especially oil and fuel. The ships are at sea with a crew of about 20 in the Atlantic Ocean, the Baltic Sea and the Gulf region.
German Tanker Shipping employs a total of around 531 people.
The initial situation
Since its foundation in 1998, it has been part of the company’s philosophy to provide all-round support for its tankers as a “real shipping company”. Construction supervision, manning, chartering, operations, accounting, financing, IT, payment transactions, insurance, supply of stocks and spare parts, maintenance and inspections as well as quality and safety standards are all managed centrally from Bremen. IT and telecommunications play a special role here. This is because each ship must be connected to the shipping company at all times in order to be able to respond optimally to the tanker spot market.
In addition, the highly qualified crew expects to be able to stay in touch with their families and friends in private, just as they are used to on the mainland. German Tanker Shipping therefore also allows crew members to use the telephone and Internet privately.
Last but not least: In rare cases, functioning communication saves lives, for example if the ship is in distress at sea or if someone of the crew is seriously ill.
The requirement
In order to reduce the effort and cost of IT systems, German Tanker Shipping was already looking for a new, up-to-date IT solution for its tankers in 2011 as part of the ESA project to optimize satellite communications on ships (project name SASS@Sea) that would meet the following requirements:
This resulted in the following requirements:
- Stable and secure Internet connection around the clock and around the world.
- Flexibility of bandwidths depending on the application
- Secure connections for business-critical communications, including firewall and backup solution
- A crew Internet portal
- A good price-performance ratio with a monthly fixed price
- Competent technical support 24/7
- Compliance with the Maritime Labour Convention
The solution
As a specialist in satellite communications, MediaMobil has been meeting all of German Tanker’s requirements in terms of hardware, software, IT security, installation and contracting for over ten years. With its self-developed Multilink Gateway, MediaMobil succeeds in guaranteeing a particularly stable, secure and at the same time cost-effective Internet connection even on the high seas.
These special gateways independently ensure the currently best communication channel for each ship in the MediaMobil teleports in Bremen, Hawaii, USA and Australia. To do this, they switch transparently between VSAT and other satellite networks. Or – near the coast – they search for alternative mobile communication or WLAN connections. In any case, the tedious and patchy manual realignment of satellite communications is eliminated.
In addition, the traditional shipping company saves considerable costs by ensuring that the system only delivers the bandwidths that are actually needed for a particular use. For example, voice transmission and business communications can be prioritized by a special service management system, or particularly high data volumes can only be sent when the corresponding bandwidth is available.
To provide special security for business-critical communications, MediaMobil isolates the corporate network from the public WordWideWeb and installs additional firewalls. Backup is realized via alternative connections with Iridium.
The client's conclusion
Joob Holzhausen, Head of IT at German Tanker Shipping and a former seaman, is very familiar with the constraints on the ship, especially in connection with the tanker spot market, and knows how much good communication on board is worth.
He particularly emphasizes the secure, constant connection at “affordable prices” that MediaMobil provides. The support provided by the experts in Bremen is also top-notch, he says, because they can provide immediate, competent assistance. “There is no 1st level etc. and only from 3rd level an answer is to be expected. MediaMobil helps immediately,” is his experience.
German Tanker Shipping has repeatedly compared MediaMobil’s services with those of the competition. His conclusion: “MediaMobil offers a particularly comprehensive service package at a very good price-performance ratio. What’s more, the chemistry is just right when it comes to working together.”