Photo: Eutelsat via iStock

Eutelsat Communications has secured a multi-year contract with Telenor Maritime to provide Ku-band coverage for sailing areas in Europe, Trans-Atlantic crossings, the Caribbean, and South East Asia, the company announced Wednesday. 

Eutelsat will leverage several of its satellites in order to deliver targeted capacity with guaranteed levels of throughput to specific sailing areas under a managed services agreement. This will provide high speed internet to cruise and ferry passengers. 

At the beginning of the contract, Telenor Maritime vessels will progressively transfer vessels onto the network. Later, Telenor Maritime will migrate vessels onto Eutelsat’s Ka-band satellite Konnect VHTS, which is due for launch in 2021 and commercial service in 2022. Telenor Maritime is the first reference customer from the maritime industry on the new satellite.

“Eutelsat was selected based on its ability to deliver the right platform/ and service mix to suit our target markets and the flexibility to accommodate our high standards with respect to the latency of voice traffic, capacity management and deployment flexibility,” Telenor Maritime CEO Lars Erik Lunoe said.