Shipping vessel. Photo: Marlink

Eutelsat Communications secured a multi-year contract extension with Marlink on Wednesday that builds off of a global maritime partnership agreement both companies signed in 2019. The extension will see Eutelsat provide additional Ku-band Geostationary Orbit (GEO) capacity to Marlink’s maritime VSAT platform in Africa, the Middle East, the Americas and Asia.

Eutelsat said the contract involves, “several hundred incremental Mhz on multiple Eutelsat satellites” that will deliver targeted capacity with guaranteed levels of throughput to specific areas where Marlink’s shipping, offshore, cruise/ferry, yachting and fishing customers sail. The operator also called the deal an example of “the strong market demand for maritime broadband connectivity across all market segments, driven by a rising number of connected vessels and the surge of the unitary vessel bandwidth and data usage.”

Marlink Group CEO Erik Ceuppens said his company has been satisfied with the partnership it signed with Eutelsat in 2019.  “We are delighted to extend our partnership with Eutelsat, which has proven its ability to deliver the right platform and capabilities 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,” Ceuppens said in the announcement.

Financial details of the contract were not disclosed.