Following the launch of KVH’s Mini VSAT Broadband 2.0 turnkey communications and entertainment system at the London Shipping Week in September of this year, SuperyachtNews.com caught up with Mike Mitsock, KVH’s vice president of marketing, at FLIBS 2015 to discuss developments made to the system in order to optimise superyacht usage.

Under the mantra ‘the power of one’ KVH’s Mini VSAT Broadband 2.0 provides the hardware, software and aftercare for on board connectivity and content, be it operational content such as charts and training programs or entertainment content. In order to provide ample data and content packages KVH utilises a system called multicasting.

“In some ways the superyacht segment is very close to the commercial [segment], not necessarily in relation to the size of the boat, but in terms of its ability to consume data,” explained Mitsock. However, the key difference that Mitsock alluded to were the periods of time during which the data is not consumed.

In the commercial sector data is being consumed almost continuously. Whereas a leisure yacht will experience long periods of decreased or zero usage.

The Mini VAST Broadband 2.0 rate plans were, until now, structured to suit the commercial maritime industry. At FLIBS 2015 KVH has announced a set of new ‘Mega’ and ‘Flex’ rate plans, the latter being of potential interest to leisure yachts with its facility to only charge for the months the data plan is needed.

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