Tallink Grupp, the largest maritime passenger and cargo transport provider on the Baltic Sea, in partnership with Swedish company Nowhere Networks have recently installed a cutting-edge Wireless Antenna Tracking Sytem (WATS) on board the company’s newest fleet member Megastar. According to Tallink Grupp’s press release, the tracker provides the ship, operating on the Tallinn-Helsinki route, with a 400M/bit internet connection on board – the fastest and most stable internet connection currently available on the Baltic Sea.
The tracker enables the company to provide its customers with even faster uninterrupted network coverage on board Megastar during the whole two-hour journey. With the new technology a high speed connection is beamed to the shore by the tracker and the antenna re-aligns itself in real-time to maintain the highest speed at all times. The Nowhere Networks Trackers, manufactured in Stockholm, have been specifically designed to extend wireless connectivity to moving objects on land or sea and are built to survive harsh marine conditions.
Commenting on the partnership with Nowhere Networks and the new cutting-edge technology on board its ship, Tallink Grupp’s CEO Paavo Nõgene said:
„Here at Tallink we are continuously looking for new and innovative solutions in cooperation with our business partners, all aimed at providing our customers with the latest products and services ahead of the rest of the market.
„Good network connections at sea have been and continue to be a challenge for maritime transport providers and currently there is no good, cost-effective cross-Europe solution available for the sector. At the same time, having good access to the Internet is fast becoming a human right and our customers expect the same kind of connectivity while at sea as they have on shore. So it was clear to us that we must work hard and act now to meet our customers’ expectations.
“I am pleased that our initial tests with the wireless tracking system solution went very well and we are now already able to provide our customers with the best Internet connection on the Baltic Sea on Megastar. We are in the process of installing the tracker also on our other shuttle Star in the near future and are working on finding a solution for improved connectivity also on our Estonia-Sweden and Finland-Sweden route vessels by the end of the year.“
Asbjörn Frydenlund, CEO at Nowhere Networks, added: “We are very pleased to have worked with Tallink Grupp on this cutting-edge technology project. By using the Nowhere Networks Tracker platform, Tallink can now successfully deliver an improved Internet service to the company’s millions of passengers with our unique technology. This is the first project of this kind with a ferry operator and we are pleased it has been a success. It’s another step in our mission to provide high speed, reliable internet and connectivity to historically impossible places, especially out at sea.”
AS Tallink Grupp is the leading passenger and cargo transportation service provider in the Northern region of the Baltic Sea. The company owns 14 vessels and operates under the brands of Tallink and Silja Line on 7 different routes. AS Tallink Grupp employs more than 7,400 people in the region and over 9.8 million passengers travelled on its ferries in 2017. AS Tallink Grupp is listed on the Tallinn Stock Exchange.
Nowhere Networks is on a mission to connect every ship with high speed broadband. We’re doing this with Wireless Antenna Tracking technology which auto-beams wireless signal from ship to shore, keeping vessels connected at all times. Our intelligent cloud-based Tracker platform scales to over 10,000 vessels, enabling shipping companies, ferry operators and Oil & Gas providers to control entire fleets. The Tracker itself works with a growing number of 3rd party wireless broadband radios allowing our customers to grow their network how they want it.