During the 2014 Monaco Yacht Show, Global Marine Communications (GMC) hosted breakfast meetings onboard the 65m White Rose of Drachs to explain how it’s possible to best manage the Internet on yachts as well as give an overview on their addition of more coverage including the Atlantic & USA for internet services and their ViTO service.
Many vessels have very high Internet billings without understanding why. GMC has developed a concept that lets owners and captains understand how they can manage their internet service to get a better experience online by prioritizing traffic to certain groups of people or by time and speed as well as data, this way everyone on board can use the internet without someone causing any issues to others.
Known as B.O.S.S.(Bandwidth Optimizer Service Selector) this simple user interface allows the Captain to ensure best use of available bandwidth
for “ships business” whilst still allowing crew access within given budget allowances or time windows.
It guarantees high priority users internet access capacity allowing them to go about their work without worrying what others are doing.
B.O.S.S. does this “gently” and without employing the current, rather crude, approach of disconnecting all crew from the network when the owner is on board.
The utility can even ensure primary users (Owner/Officers) always have priority access for their traffic giving them 100% of the availability if required with no additional management overhead on the ship’s master or system administrator.
In addition it ensures only authorised users have access to the ship’s network and bandwidth by providing a secure login “token” to each member of the vessel. It can also select specific schedule for which crew members can have access.