Jan De Nul Group has moved its entire fleet of 82 vessels and jack-up barges to a new connectivity set-up, rolling out VSAT from Castor Marine with Iridium L-band back-up following the agreement of a long-term contract.

The Group managed to successfully migrate 98% of the fleet within three months of signing the deal, with up to six migrations taking place per day, the companies said.

The vessels have implemented a tailored VSAT system, with quality of service specified on the VLAN level. Bandwidth can be scaled up as required, based on ad hoc demands from each vessel.

Along with the VSAT and Iridium services, Castor Marine delivered 15 new Sailor 900 VSAT antennas and Sailor 4300 Iridium Certus antennas to replace existing hardware onboard. For the newbuild offshore jack-up installation vessel Voltaire and the offshore heavy lift vessel Les Alizés, Castor Marine supplied a set of antenna systems from the recently launched Sailor 1000 XTR VSAT range, including below deck equipment.

“It is nice to work with an agile and technically advanced partner. Flexibility is very important to Jan De Nul to cater for temporary project upgrades and downgrades. Castor Marine monitors these developments and communication lines are very short. We attach great importance to mutual trust. So far, everything is going as desired with our new Ku- and L-band supplier,” said Nils Crabeel, Communication Manager at Jan De Nul Group.