[SatNews] Stratos Global is nearing completion of its deployment of the Inmarsat FleetBroadband satellite communications service on 55 commercial vessels for Harren & Partner Ship Management GmbH & Co. KG (H&P).

Based in Bremen, Germany, H&P is a large European shipping company with a global fleet including bulkers, tankers, feeders, heavy-lift carriers, container vessels and dock ships. FleetBroadband from Stratos already has been successfully deployed on 40 H&P vessels. Deployment on 15 additional vessels will be completed in the coming months. The service also will be deployed on new vessels that H&P expects to build in 2012. FleetBroadband from Stratos provides H&P with broadband connectivity while at sea – for email, Internet access and voice communications – ensuring optimal vessel performance, business operations and crew productivity. The deployment includes accounting authority and point-of-activation services from Stratos. As an added benefit, this agreement provides H&P with recently announced lower FleetBroadband voice rates of 55 cents per minute.

This deployment for H&P includes the full range of The Stratos Advantage value-added services for which Stratos has become well known. Those services – which are ensuring that H&P attains the highest possible FleetBroadband performance, security and cost control – include:

• The online Stratos Dashboard, which provides H&P with cost and traffic control, firewall management and many other benefits
• AmosConnect, Stratos’ sophisticated communications application, to manage all interoffice communications and improve monitoring of Whitelist and Blacklist changes
• Providing H&P with its own private email domain for this network
• Stratos’ new AmosConnect Crew CommCenter that enables seafarers to stay in contact with home via calling, private email and SMS at affordable, flat global rates – while enjoying true onboard Internet café features, such as prepaid chatting, prepaid web browsing and access to global and local news services
• Stratos ChatCards for crew calling, which have contributed to higher H&P crew satisfaction by providing easy billing and ordering

To enhance Internet security for this network, Stratos also implemented an encrypted Virtual Private Network (VPN) via IPSec between its Land Earth Station in Burum, The Netherlands and H&P’s corporate office in Bremen. H&P makes full use of the encrypted VPN’s remote dial-in option from Bremen to all its vessels, which provides direct access to each FleetBroadband terminal, the system’s firewall and the captain’s computer system.