Alan Spicer Marine Telecom All Blogs

having just launched a satellite at the day job (and another coming this next year), i can confirm that i've never seen *anything* that bunches the undies quite like that.

while losing the satellite during launch tears a huge hole in the project schedule, all birds are insured against launch failures, at least enough to replace the bird. but that is scant solace during the last couple of minutes of profuse sweating. Protostar I went on an Ariane 5E which took a while to establish its credibility, so that was in the back of everyone's minds. The launch did go just fine, but once the solids light, all you can do is watch and hang on for dear life.

As for Internet via Satellite...

With the exception of broadcast services like DirecTV where satellites are usually the best choice, satellite communication is a technology of last resort. The paths are long, the delays are large, and it's all very cranky, especially with a terminal on a boat. But if the choice is *no connectivity*, the satellite link looks pretty good. Compared to terrestrial, though, satellite is very seldom the first choice, if you have a choice.

Posted by: Mike at August 21, 2008 12:50 AM

* Any comments obtained via the web, or articles, that the owner does not want left posted on here - will be removed upon request. I aim only to report relevant commentary and information, always citing sources if not my own. Please email or call me by phone if you want any comment removed.

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245

The following comes from Power and Motor Yacht, by the excellent Ben of Panbo's Marine Blog.

http://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/electronics/vsat-fleet-broadband/

VSAT vs. Fleet Broadband
High-end satellite broadband has evolved, but service can still be contentious.
By Ben Ellison

With a solar cell wingspan of 145 feet, Inmarsat's new I-4 birds promise reliable, global coverage.

I was annoyed! I'd found a cozy corner at the Fort Lauderdale airport with a five-bar connection to the free WiFi Internet service there, but I could barely pull up a Web page, and my e-mail icon just spun hopelessly. I tried the normal fixes-renewing my IP address, re-establishing the connection, even rebooting the laptop-all to no avail. At least I understood the probable cause, a phenomenon known in networking terms as a "high-contention ratio," which simply means that lots of users were contending for the same bandwidth. And, sure enough, a stroll around the gate area revealed scores of frowning laptop users industriously renewing, rebooting, etc.

I'll admit to comforting myself with the knowledge that somewhere on the planet-probably somewhere exotic-there was likely a cohort of megayacht users experiencing a similar contention-related log jam. Except that they'd likely paid upwards of $50,000 for a large, stabilized antenna capable of delivering marine broadband at speeds approaching my laptop's tiny built-in WiFi radio, plus upwards of $1,000 a month for even a moderately speedy, always-on satellite service. When that setup doesn't work right, it's truly annoying.

I'd heard some of that annoyance expressed quite vocally during a broadband satellite communications presentation at the Global Superyacht Forum, which runs alongside the annual fall METS marine-equipment extravaganza in Amsterdam (a big thanks to The Yacht Report for permitting me to audit its Forum). The presentation panel included representatives of major satcom companies like Inmarsat, KVH, and Radio Holland as well as lesser-known but noteworthy VSAT (very small aperature terminal) specialists MTN and GMC. They'd come to explain the new technologies that are shaking up the big-yacht broadband niche to a highly interested audience of yacht captains and communications specialists.

But the audience had some things to say, too, and I took their mood as lesson number one on the state of sat com. Megayacht events are generally buttoned up and extra polite, but this bunch got nearly rowdy, especially when the panelists described the data rates each of their services offered. "But what's the guaranteed rate?" and "How about your average speed and maximum contention ratio?" the attendees demanded, and vague answers were not appreciated. It was obvious that there must be some unhappy Web surfers on megayachts-and phone users, too, as that function is rapidly being converged into always-on broadband. And unlike, say, whoever manages the free WiFi at the Fort Lauderdale airport, complaining to the captain is an option. I'd bet the wizened ones have their comms consultant on speed dial.

Even the panelists allowed that satellite-speed claims like "up to 1 Mbps," along with contract phrases like "best efforts," should be red flags to discerning shoppers, and shopping marine broadband already entails boatloads of discernment. On the one hand, there's a seemingly infinite number of VSAT services, each offering its own particular coverage areas and rate schedules. Mega Internet may be a small niche, but there are a surprising number of ground stations and geosynchronous Ku-band satellites already competing to serve ships and oil platforms, not to mention various big terrestrial users like TV broadcasters. If one has some unused bandwidth available on those costly and impossible-to-maintain birds, why not find a partner who can sell it to yachties, preferably as many times as possible (contention be damned)?

The venerable Sea Tel 4006 VSAT antenna weighs 250 pounds.

VSAT hardware isn't sitting still, either. One-meter antennas, like the venerable SeaTel 4006, have new direct competitors, like the OrSat AL-7103 MKII. Plus 2007 saw the advent of mini-VSAT, a new way to put broadband afloat with much smaller antennas and purportedly more efficient frequency management, and hence lower all-you-can-eat rates. KVH's TracPhone V7 is the mini-VSAT innovator, but I know that SeaTel is working on a similar, reportedly more robust system and would bet it's not the only company doing so.

Then there's Inmarsat. Originally chartered in 1979 as an IGO (intergovernmental organization) dedicated to marine-satellite communications, including critical GMDSS safety messages, it has morphed into a publicly traded company competing for land and sea customers. Assuming that the third, and last, of its giant fourth-generation satellites successfully launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan shortly before this prints, Inmarsat will have nearly global and quite modern broadband capabilities. These went into limited service ashore as BGAN a while back and were introduced to boats as Fleet Broadband last November.

Like mini-VSAT, Fleet Broadband packs more punch into a much smaller dome-though bigger, faster domes are available-and it, too, is being offered by KVH, among others. Why offer both? Inmarsat remains a premium-priced service-part of why its third-generation Fleet service lost many customers to VSAT-but it's also one of the few that can be purchased as needed; plus there's the extended range and Inmarsat's history of reliability. There's much more to Fleet Broadband, like Inmarsat's ability to aim the new satellites' many spot beams to take care of a contentious situation like a New Year's mega mob in St. Barts, but at some point I have to leave the discerning to you.

KVH's 24-inch, 60-pound mini-VSAT helps avoid "dome pressure."

I will note, though, that many in the business were unhappily surprised by Fleet Broadband's high hardware and service costs and attributed them to the byzantine layers of distribution left over from Inmarsat's NGO days. Those contracts expire in 2009, and Inmarsat has even acquired a large stake in one of its biggest resellers, Stratos. A quicker, more entrepreneurial Inmarsat is anticipated.

I'll also add that the sat-comms niche suffers like other areas of marine electronics from a surfeit of misinformation. Most is due to the complexity of the business and the difficulty of making fair performance comparisons, but some may be plain ill will. For instance, I've been told repeatedly, usually in hushed tones, that KVH's mini-VSAT had "aiming" and FCC problems. But when I ran these to ground, I found nothing but satisfied early customers.

As for those of you who'd like to be shopping for offshore broadband, many incremental improvements are expected, but no magic tech bullet is in sight. And there's no hope of on-the-water broadband truly catching up to what's happening ashore, like the anticipated arrival of streaming high-definition movies. That's why somewhere there's a yacht owner frustrated about a critical conference call from his suite or just annoyed trying to watch the latest Britney Web video from a teak chaise on the aft deck. I just hope they're easy on the captain, because getting sat broadband right is tough. I learned in Amsterdam that there's even a phenomenon called "dome pressure," which is the need for more big antennas than you can fit aloft, and is likely a problem you can take pleasure in not having.

For the latest on electronics, visit Ellison's blog at Panbo.

http://www.panbo.com/

Please also support and visit http://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/ Power and Motor Yacht.

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245

PS, Sorting out Syrens/Wave/GeoSat Solutions: GeoSat has been making high-end marine WiFi systems for years, but for a while they were distributed as Syrens WiFi by an independent company called Radio-at-Sea. Now GeoSat is doing direct distribution as Wave WiFi, but, whereas Radio-at-Sea owned the "Syrens" name, it's marketing different WiFi hardware under it. So if you're looking for Syrens (Nik is big fan of its hardware and service), go to Wave WiFi. Which doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the new Syrens gear, except maybe the element of confusion.

* This tidbit was gleaned from Panbo's...

http://www.panbo.com/archives/2008/09/kvh_minivsat_easy_but_what_about_dhcp.html#more

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245

* I wanted to add this to my satellite pages on marinetelecom.net, and although I know this is just a little bit old news, it might still be new to some in marine such as sail and motor yacht people. I'm updating information in my web site about Fleet Broadband and Mini-VSAT to keep up with the changes and information that's available.

19-08-2008 - Inmarsat (LSE:ISAT), the leading provider of global mobile satellite communications services, has confirmed the successful launch and acquisition of the third Inmarsat-4 satellite.

The satellite was launched on a Proton Breeze M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:43pm BST on 18 August (4:43am 19th August, local time). Inmarsat's tracking station in Fucino, Italy was able to track the satellite while it was still coupled to the Breeze M launch vehicle. Launch provider ILS confirmed successful spacecraft separation at 8:46am BST on 19 August.

Reference: http://www.inmarsat.com/About/Newsroom/00024238.aspx?language=EN&textonly=False

Third Inmarsat Version 4 (Next Generation / Broadband Internet) Satellite is Launched (this heading by Alan Spicer, news from inmarsat.com)

The satellite is the third in the I-4 constellation, concluding a decade of development and a US$1.5 billion investment. The current constellation of two Inmarsat-4 satellites delivers mobile broadband services to 85 per cent of the world's landmass, covering 98 per cent of the world's population. The third I-4 will complete the global coverage for Inmarsat's broadband services.

Global coverage
Andrew Sukawaty, chief executive and chairman of Inmarsat, said: "The Inmarsat-4s are the world's most sophisticated commercial network for mobile voice and data services, and the successful launch of the third I-4 allows us to complete the global coverage for our broadband services. Once the third I-4 is operational, Inmarsat will have the only fully-funded next-generation network for mobile satellite services."

The Proton Breeze M is one of the few launch vehicles capable of lifting the I-4 satellite - the size of a London double-decker bus and weighing six tons - into geostationary transfer orbit. The I-4 F3 satellite will now undergo a period of deployment and several weeks of comprehensive tests and manoeuvres before being positioned in geostationary orbit at 98º West.

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245

Our apologies, Alan Spicer Marine Telecom web site and blogs has been down for just over 24 hours. We've had a DSL Internet Connection outage and have been working with AT&T to get service restored.

We're on Business Class DSL ... and somehow it went down around 5pm yesterday. It took work on both AT&T and our part to get it back up and running. I would like to thank the Customer Service and Technical Support and the behind-the-scenes IP/NOC services for their help in getting us back online as quickly as possible.

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245

* Hello, I'm testing WordPress - and excellent Blog and Content Management System for possible use as a replacement for my current blog and possibly to manage (and clean up) the loads of content that's on my main web site: http://www.marinetelecom.net

If it goes well, even so ... it will be quite a job to migrate all or a good part of my content into WordPress.

Anyway... if you have a chance drop by to:

http://www.marinetelecom.net/wordpress/

and send me your opinions or comments on it. Especially if you've used WordPress yourself and have any suggestions.

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245

Spam may have dropped off as much as 50 to 75% on Wednesday after a hosting center called McColo was shut down by it's upstream provider, Hurricane Electric, and probably as well by Global Crossing company.

It's a fairly hot news item.

Hosting Companies and smaller Internet Service Providers (ISP's) have to get an Internet Connection too, just like rest of us, only more expensive and much better speed (called Bandwidth by many.) They also sign on, as us ordinary mortal users - to agree to AUP or Acceptable Use Policies, which stipulate what kind of activity they can and cannot do on their Internet Connection. Bigger connections do what is called "Peering" which without getting overly technical means that they "jack in" to a Larger Gateway often called an Internet Exchange or IX - or someone that is already big enough to connect to an IX. At the IX basically the "calling plan" of how to get to the "Littler Guys" network is shared and announced to the "Bigger Guys" network. This is how routing (on a basic concept level) works on the Internet. The little guy announces all of his networks (IP Address Blocks) to the bigger guy, who in turn uses it and passes it on to other systems on the Internet. The same happens at least on some level from the bigger guy to the smaller guy. But everyone uses some main "GATEWAY" point to get to everywhere else. An important part of this that most users don't know is that it is as important that 1.) A computer has a Gateway TO the Internet, and 2.) That the rest of the Internet knows how to get to that Computer. In actuality it's not the end computer, but the Network - or Network IP Address Block. This might be a way for spammers to be stopped no matter where they go. The routes to a network are announce by routing protocols. If a bad guy network were discovered, and there were a way to have everyone important (the Big Guys mentioned before) drop the routes to the bad guys networks, then he disappears off of the Internet. You see it's a two way street. Coming in, and going out. If the rest of the Internet were to "forget" how to get to your network, If everybody dropped the ROUTES to your network, then you're network basically disappears. No matter what YOU DO. Nothing has to be disconnected, no connection has to be terminated. The Internet just in effect forgets about you. You can send ip packets out all you want, but no acknowledgement or traffic would pass. Connections would never happen. Because the "return path" to BadGuy Network would basically not exist on a virtual level called Routing Announcements.

Basically Hurricane Electric (and Global Crossing?) pulled the plug on McColo after much apparent evidence of hosting of spamming, bot nets (which use infected zombie computers all over the Internet), and other exploit and possibly criminal server / services running on the Mcolo Network. Allegedly Mcolo turned a blind eye to these activities. I guess money still talks even to the point of almost or actually becoming criminal activity.

Mcolo.com has been around since at least February 2005, according to the Internet Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.mccolo.com/ but they are DOWN now. By the way, my guess these guys are Russian (not that there is anything wrong with Russian persons.), from language I saw in the web.archive.org there was Russian Language in missing image files shown. I was viewing an English archived page, there was a link to change to Russian, but no other language option. 2005 page shows them bragging about their excellent connections to the Internet. Their web page design changed several times. Sometime in 2007 became somehow not very well saved by the web.archive.org.

Anyway spam supposedly dropped dramatically. Others say that Spam isn't necessarily dead. That it will just move elsewhere. And that other such large spam hosting operations have been shut down in the past, and the spammers and such just popped up elsewhere. Interestingly two of the recent such sites (the current one being discussed and a previous similar one) were both in California. I wonder what's up with California?

Supposedly they will just move off shore, possibly Eastern Europe. Hopefully those in Eastern Europe are hearing that as well. It would be a shame if there weren't some mechanism whereby it could be detected - where the new location is, anywhere on the Internet, and block it. Shut it off from the rest of the Internet. But that can get more complicated. If you can't get their upstream providers to cut them off, then what else can you do? Block their connection leaving a country? Block their connection coming in to a country (like the U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.?) And what if they spread out more... to multiple locations. It could be a long battle... possibly not really ending any time soon.

If the perpetrators were in the U.S. then why wasn't legal or police action taken? Maybe it still will be. If they are still in the U.S. make an example out of them before they can leave, or via the Internet do a "Virtual" leaving of the U.S. to places that may harbor their activities or support of such activities. Of course I'm not a lawyer and no doubt the legal aspects of this against the Mcolo provider can be complicated as well.

Hopefully our new President-Elect will be listening to these happenings and will give the right empowerments where necessary to get these kinds of things stopped.

An interesting blog about this stuff is here:

http://blog.fireeye.com/research/

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245

* Here's a tip that I've hinted at before here on my blog...

Yachts: [Tip] Saving on International "Internet" Roaming on Cellular GSM/UMTS/HSPA

2008 November 10th - by Alan Spicer - Our Yachting Customers might consider the following AT&T Internet Plans for when they are traveling outside the U.S. and needing to avoid expensive Internet Roaming Charges:

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/affordable-world-packages.jsp Affordable World Packages. I found this while following an article lead on the newer 3G iPhone and Packages offerred by AT&T for these devices to travel. But the plans also have potential for other devices such as the Ericsson W25 that we sell here on Alan Spicer Marine Telecom. Note: If you don't have some international plan you should turn off your 3G Internet capability when outside of the U.S. Not doing so could result in $thousands on your cellular bill traveling internationally in a yacht (or any other way for that manner.)

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245

ASMT Occassional Bulletin: Hot off the presses. Sorry to invade your INBOXES again so soon, but this looked IMPORTANT. This isn't a Microsoft "Patch Tuesday" and I get regular updates - and my computer NEEDED THIS. Yours probably does too.

* If you don't already have this critical update patch, you need to be getting it NOW! I grabbed it for XP, downloaded quick. Installed quick. And didn't require a reboot. It's also needed for Vista. So grab it now and be safe!

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 - Critical

Heard about 1st on: http://ct.zdnet.com/clicks?t=72382851-39d80d14b042abc4ff667ffb25d5ec69-bf&brand=ZDNET&s=5

MS08-067 worms squirming in the wild

Ryan Naraine: Virus hunters are reporting two new in-the-wild worms exploiting the critical MS08-067 vulnerability. The worms, intercepted on Chinese-language versions of Windows, are being used to install a Trojan downloader, a denial-of-service bot and a rootkit to maintain stealthy presence on infected machines.
READ FULL STORY

* In other news... a Minor Firmware Update (not required) is available for Ericsson W25 Cellular Voice and Internet Router units: http://www.marinetelecom.net/b2evolution/blogs/ get it at: http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W25/. If you're going to do this update make sure you grab the Release Notes and Upgrade Instructions. Let me know if you have any problems doing it.

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245

Please see: http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W25/

and look for the R11B Required Files section.

A new firmware is now available for the W25 to fix some minor bugs with advanced features.

For the US the firmware fixes 'Caller ID' and calling waiting issues.

http://www.fixedwirelessterminal.com/ericsson_w25/downloads.html

This is not an important firmware release just a maintenance upgrade.

* * * * Note: Please make sure to get the RELEASE NOTES and the FIRMWARE UPGRADE INSTRUCTIONS. You will need to follow the instructions closely in order to do this upgrade. The file format from release R11A forward has changed from ".img" file to ".arc" file. All upgrades after this will require the type ".arc" file. Please review the instructions and release notes about upgrade and downgrade capabilities and requirements. If you need help with this, let me know...

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245