KVH Gearing Up To Serve 'Largely Untapped' Maritime Market

摘要

Maritime satellite services and equipment provider KVH, which in 2013 doubled the amount of Ku-band satellite capacity it had under lease, is now beefing up its C-band capacity to fill in its remaining Ku-band gaps and offer backup in areas already under Ku-band coverage, the company said. Middletown, R.I.-based KVH plans the commercial debut by this spring of a multicast service that will beam entertainment and ship-operational data to maritime customers in a bid to replace the longstanding practice of sending DVDs by mail to ports in advance of ship arrivals. In a Jan. 15 presentation to investors in New York, KVH Chief Executive Martin Kits van Heyningen said some 1,700 maritime vessels currently receive both entertainment and navigational information by mail. "It's kind of a nightmare," he said - and an opportunity for KVH.