For more than 35 years, Inmarsat has been operating the most reliable mobile satellite communications network and evolving our product and service portfolio to meet our customer’s needs. As new and innovative technologies emerge and marketplace requirements change, their products and services eventually reach their natural end of life (EOL).
Over the past few years, Inmarsat has been communicating the expected EOL dates for the Fleet services. We can now confirm the schedule is as follows:
- MPDS – 31st December 2017
- Fleet 33 & 55 – 31st December 2018*
- Fleet 77 – 1st December 2020
*Date is subject to further validation and may be confirmed for earlier in 2018
What is EOL?
‘End of Life – EOL’ is the time when the terminals associated with the retired services are deactivated on the network and the services are no longer available to customers.
Note: Please be advised that activations of the Fleet services should cease at least three months prior to the respective EOL dates (as above).
Why is Inmarsat ending Fleet services?
Inmarsat has retired several of our legacy services operating over our Inmarsat-3 (I-3) satellites during the last few years. The I-3 satellites are reaching the end of their lifespan and therefore it is necessary for us to continue the end of life process of our legacy services, including Fleet services.
Note: Inmarsat is committed to providing safety at sea and will continue to offer and support our Inmarsat-C service. This service will be migrated to the Inmarsat-4 (I-4) satellites.
What service migration options are available?
Customers are encouraged to migrate to one of the following Inmarsat services which offer simultaneous voice and IP data:
- Fleet One
- Up to 100kbps always-on IP data
- Voice
- SMS
- Inmarsat’s free ‘505’ safety service
- FleetBroadband 250
- Up to 284kbps Always-on IP data
- Up to 9 phone lines
- Group 3 and 4 fax
- SMS
- Inmarsat’s free ‘505’ safety service
- FleetBroadband 500
- Up to 284kbps Always-on IP data
- Up to 9 phone lines
- Group 3 and 4 fax
- SMS
- Inmarsat’s free ‘505’ safety service
- Fleet Xpress
- Up to 8 Mbps Always-on IP data
- Committed Data Rates
- Up to 25 phone lines with support for 5 concurrent calls
- Unlimited FleetBroadband back-up
- Inmarsat’s free ‘505’ safety service
For further information, or if you would like to discuss the migration options and available incentives, please contact E3X Global.