Crew social calling is a growing but still under exploited market. Several challenges exist today that prevent the market from being fully exploited, such as:

• Lack of satellite terminals on vessels dedicated for use by crew. On many vessels crew members have to go to the bridge of the vessel to ask the captain or mate to use the satellite terminal, which principally is there for commercial operations and safety. This often creates a deterrent to making calls;


• Lack of privacy. Even on vessels that have dedicated crew calling phones, it is often located in a public area, making it hard to have a private conversation;


• Lack of a streamlined means of account settlement. On many vessels, the method for crewmembers to pay for the calls involves manual timing of duration and calculation of the charge creating an administrative barrier;


• Peak rate tariffs outside of the off peak periods are causing crews to make fewer calls; and


• High cost of shipboard terminals, inhibit ship-owners/managers to make specific crew calling hardware investments.

This project is to develop a maritime BGAN terminal integrated with a mobile phone 3G Pico cell to provide a service where crews can use their personal mobile phones for social communication.