Speedcast Renews Contract with Carnival

Speedcast International (ASX:SDA) announced that it has signed a new multi-year contract with Carnival for providing remote communications and value added services on Carnival’s fleet of cruise ships.

As quoted in the press release:

The three-year material contract is expected to generate 8-9% of expected full year 2019 revenue.

Speedcast has been delivering communications services to over 100 cruise ships across the various Carnival brands since 2013. With this new contract, Carnival increases its investment in communications, with bandwidth delivered to the fleet increased significantly in order to provide its guests with a high-quality internet experience. Speedcast is leveraging 40 satellites, including High Throughput Satellites (HTS), across C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band spectrums and 20 teleports to deliver the largest dedicated maritime satellite network in the world.

The connectivity experience is managed and enhanced by a unique and innovative centrally-orchestrated intelligent automation system called Speedcast TrueBeam. Speedcast TrueBeam is the result of a four-year development program at Speedcast, and is being launched operationally for the first time. TrueBeam gives ships anywhere in the world the ability to seamlessly maintain communications, even while moving in and out of a satellite beam’s coverage area. The system incorporates intelligence that understands, predicts and mitigates known satellite communication challenges, such as rain fade, line of sight blockage and network congestion. TrueBeam is critical when using the small beams of HTS, which can require multiple beam switches per day. The TrueBeam system analyzes network availability, capacity, bands, and other key data points across networks and is able to make intelligent decisions without manual interaction. It is the first system of its kind that is able to centralize the planning and switching of a remote network of this size and scale.

Speedcast’s services also include an extensive global terrestrial backhaul network to carry data traffic to the internet and back to Carnival’s key operations data centers. Speedcast will also implement the latest network optimization technologies from Xiplink to help enable an enhanced guest experience.

Beyond connectivity, Speedcast will provide an enhanced suite of value-added services including voice services and support for the growing demand for data-rich applications and streaming from personal devices while onboard.

Speedcast’s 24/7 Technical Support Centers on five continents, a dedicated service delivery team and over 250 field engineers globally will ensure the operation and maintenance of the network to deliver a high degree of service availability.

“Speedcast is thrilled and proud to continue this partnership with Carnival as its trusted provider for communications,” says PJ Beylier, Speedcast CEO. “I would like to thank the entire Carnival team for their trust and look forward to continuously raising the bar together with Carnival to deliver an industry-leading communications guest experience in the cruise industry, just as we did earlier in the year delivering world record-setting bandwidth to the Carnival Horizon. The continuation of our partnership with Carnival, following a very competitive process, is a testament to Speedcast’s unique capabilities, demonstrates our ability to innovate and adapt to fast-evolving customer needs and is confirmation of our leadership position in the cruise sector.”

“Carnival Corporation looks forward to continuing our relationship with Speedcast to enable industry-leading connectivity onboard our ships to enhance the guest experience beyond what we are offering today,” says Reza Rasoulian, VP of Global Connectivity for Carnival.

Click here for the full text release.