[SatNews] Stratos Global FBBPlus is now commercially available.
FBBPlus is the Company's managed global broadband service for the maritime industry. Stratos’ FBBPlus solution offers shipping companies a highly flexible migration path toward Inmarsat’s Global Xpress 50Mbps services, which is expected to be commercially available in 2013. FBBPlus combines Inmarsat’s popular FleetBroadband satellite communications service with Ku-band VSAT service. For a flat monthly fee, FBBPlus offers a managed data communications capability of up to 25 GB per month. The turnkey service offering, predictable cost, and high data allowance make FBBPlus ideally suited for global shipping companies that are customizing their own network environment and require greater throughputs and bandwidth.

Stratos recently began deploying FBBPlus on approximately 40 vessels for Hapag-Lloyd, under a five-year contract. Hapag-Lloyd, based in Hamburg, is one of the world’s largest shipping companies and is recognized as having developed one of the shipping industry’s most advanced IT systems. For Hapag-Lloyd, Stratos is fully integrating FBBPlus with AmosConnect – Stratos’ sophisticated maritime communications application – to manage all email, fax, SMS and interoffice communications. Also, The Stratos Advantage suite of value-added services will help Hapag-Lloyd attain the highest possible FBBPlus performance, security and cost control. The FBBPlus service successfully meets the increasing data requirements of shipping companies. It offers the highly reliable FleetBroadband service with the capability and capacity of Ku-band VSAT within high-density shipping areas. FBBPlus is the only service that delivers a managed MPLS extension network over separate L- and Ku-band networks, delivering resilient and redundant paths. The MPLS network separates and logically manages business, crew and non-essential traffic – while delivering high-quality voice communications via the highly efficient Inmarsat circuit-switched network.