Univan Ship Management, a leading ship management companies, is equiping its fleet with Iridium Satellite systems supplied by provider Horizon Mobile Communications (HMC) in a move to reduce communication costs between ship and shore.
To date, Univan has fitted 70 ships with Iridium phone systems and plans to equip the rest of the fleet. The decision to switch to Iridium followed extensive benchmark testing to compare Iridium communications costs with other satcom systems. HMC is providing a turnkey solution to Univan by bundling Thrane and Thrane A/S Iridium satellite telephones and data services via HMC's own optimized data hub known as HMCmail. Univan is using Iridium for a wide range of voice and data applications. Some of the ships are also being fitted with Iridium SSAS terminals to satisfy IMO carriage requirements. Bruce Borges, senior vice president, HMC Hong Kong, said, "Univan has achieved a 30 per cent reduction in average monthly satellite communications costs per ship, and more than 50 per cent on data communications costs, since switching to Iridium."
