1 month ago, Millenia Maritime oversaw the installation of Navarino’s new Prodigy service on a chemical tanker in Piraeus port. With 6 of their 7-vessel fleet under the support of Navarino’s FX service, the Prodigy installation was a perfect way to test the waters of this new service on their 7^th vessel.

Prodigy is Navarino’s new hybrid service, which combines Intelsat FlexMaritime’s network over a 1m Intellian antenna and the fastest L-band network by Iridium Certus. “Until now, everything has been stable. We had some opportunities to make some calls and already we see that call quality is amongst the clearest we have experienced” states Mr Ioannis Rizos, Millenia’s IT Manager.

Millenia have mostly been using the newly installed service for file sync applications, Infinity Mail, and smart relays, with 5 PCs from the IT side connected to the business network. “The connection has been stable, especially when we want to connect to the PC and provide remote assistance”.

For the crew of the Futura, Millenia offers 50 MB data PINs presently in order to grant them internet access in a controlled manner, and in the near future will introduce the Infinity time-limited data PINs which control internet usage on board with time quotas to ensure that the vessel’s connectivity is not constantly being used for non-business purposes.

When asked about what appealed the most about Prodigy and the reason for investing into the newer parts of Navarino’s product portfolio, Mr Rizos replied both cost efficiency and technology. Prodigy proves to be a cost-effective service – lowering costs without sacrificing quality. Additionally, Prodigy provides what is rare in the marcomms industry; no minimum contact durations and no early termination fees, as well as three levels of the service to suit the specific needs of each shipping company. Technology was also cited by Mr Rizos as a key driver. In a climate of constant change, its encouraging to see companies such as Millenia Maritime moving forwards; keeping pace with maritime digitalization.

In addition to Prodigy, Navarino’s other newest service, Spectrum – a real time, centralized, detailed listing and health monitor for a vessels’ IT and OT infrastructure & equipment, was also installed onboard. Mr Rizos said ‘Spectrum is a very well-designed tool which is especially useful for when we need to show vessel inspectors the onboard OT inventory. This is a big plus of the Spectrum service as these inspections are a TMSA requirement which Spectrum allows us to comply with in a very easy to access, presentable format.’

Navarino’s Account Manager for Millenia Maritime, Ioannis Brougiannakis, said ‘Our Prodigy service combines Intelsat’s FlexMaritime network of KU satellites with Iridium Certus, the fastest L-band network, for a new concept in connectivity . Prodigy offers connectivity as a managed service and by combining it with Infinity which acts as the ‘brain’ of the system we are able to offer Millenia an highly robust experience in terms of internet access and overall connectivity. We all know that reliable links with shore are vital in today’s industry to ensure operational efficiency, crew welfare and vessel safety. Especially now during these very difficult pandemic-affected times, crewmembers often stay onboard for many months so the need to keep in touch with their families ashore makes reliable connectivity services more important than ever.

With Prodigy we enable our customers to configure their connectivity to their exact requirements, while at the same time we increase the value for our customers by giving them the chance to freely upgrade /downgrade between the 3 main packages we offer, namely Entry, Business and Premium without downgrade penalties.’