The Marine 4G LTE Alliance

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Email: communications @ marinetelecom.net

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The Marine 4G LTE Alliance (Logo)

The Marine 4G LTE Alliance is a free to join “advocacy” group of Marine Dealers and Resellers, Members of other Marine Groups (including media), and Yacht (sail and motor) Captains – Crews- Owners; with the purpose of uniting to show our numbers to 4G LTE Manufacturers in order to entice them to release their 4G LTE Cellular Products to the Marine Market.

The cellular manufacturers often sell only to large carriers … or large (and small?) carrier “alliance” groups – and they don’t seem to notice the Marine Market which has loved them for years already …

Alan Spicer has been selling and supporting Ericsson W25 and W35 products for years already to other resellers and directly to sail and motor yachts. They have been a great system for adding a phone line (voice telephone line) to their PBX system no matter where they roam, as well as allowing them to “jack in” 3G, 3G+ (with fall back to 2G and 2.5G) reasonably Fast Internet to their on board vessel network. These systems have just been fantastic!!!!

(* A little history is in order … Yachts have been using cellular products since I have been in the business. Back in 2004 / 2005 it was Telular SX5T and Ericsson F221m and F251m, and they only provided slower 2G and 2.5G Internet and were difficult to connect and use because they used a Modem Port and required a computer to dial the connection. But they were GSM, they also provided a voice analog line connection, and they used a Sim Card for Worldwide use. Back then they were called “Fixed Cellular Terminal” – FCT or “Fixed Wireless Terminal” FWT. The naming convention of “Mobile Broadband Router”, or MBR, is only a recent development … but interestingly it is an acknowledgement that they realized that these “terminals” can be a MOBILE DEVICE. You know, they can go in boats, cars, trucks …)

Now there are new products that work on the new 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) Cellular Networks – with fall back to all of the other lower levels as described above. It’s truly the Next Generation for Cellular Fast Internet – for Yachts of all sizes. But? We can’t get these new products yet, although they have been announce and promoted, for the Marine Market. So we need to show some numbers to show the manufacturers how big of a group we are … how big of a market this is!

I just need your Name, Email Address, and your position or relation to the Marine Market … to Join. There is no cost to members at all.




Ericsson MBR Overview Video

* Notice that it’s name is “Mobile Broadband Router” but that means that it goes traveling … it’s mobile. But they only talk about it being in your home … which is what they call “Real Estate” which doesn’t move, doesn’t travel anywhere. It’s fixed. Like the old Fixed Cellular Terminal nomenclature.

…Interesting…

* Also search for “4G Router” on your favorite search engine and it’s difficult to find a 4G LTE router. Let me know if you see one? Yes there are “Cellular Card Routers” like Cradlepoint (and I sell those as well) – but these are not designed to go in a vehicle with an external antenna. The cellular card is a separate device that you have to plug into these routers, just like you would plug it into a laptop. The cellular card would have to have an External Antenna Jack. So then there’s that plumbing to figure out for everyone. The Cellular Terminals, Mobile Broadband Routers, would unify this problem … with the antenna jack problem all figure out … the Analog Phone Port (for boat PBX or Analog Phones) already in place. They are a beautiful thing – but right now they are ”vaporware”.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware but of course to give them credit – often it takes time to get these devices FCC certified, and Carrier certified so that they can be operated on cellular towers here in the U.S. You’d think FCC would be enough … but welcome to “Telecom”.

From Ericsson MBR L13 and L21 brochure – edited by Alan Spicer to include possible compatible carriers, Frequency Bands, and Upload / Dowload speeds advertised in the brochure by Ericsson. I would expect 35 to 50 megabits/s on actual cellular networks – maybe a bit slower than 25 on upload for awhile but they’ll probably get there to 25, and then on to 50 … followed by 100 on the download side? It depends on the tower / area load of users I suspect.

Carrier Frequency Use (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies)

 To give an idea of the changes in Frequency bands I am showing some LTE related modules that Sierra Wireless offers. They are like Cellular Wireless Cards that we already use, except these are designed to be “embedded” (permanently installed) in routers such as these 4G LTE routers in question here. In the current line of routers we only deal with mainly 850/900 Mhz US, and 900/1800 Mhz bands. With LTE we now have “White Spaces” (old TV Channel Frequency Spectrum) 700 Mhz, and Advanced Wireless Services – AWS Frequencies – which are a huge split between 1700 Mhz and 2100 Mhz. Notice that the modules have the fall-back to older technologies and frequency bands.

AWS and other frequency bands explained here: http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/article.php?a=99 Visual Guide to AWS

Cellular Bands (700 Mhz is not on here but would obviously be below 800 Mhz.)

AWS Bands (notice how far apart 1700 and 2100 Mhz are …

This also shows how the AWS band is broken into Letter “Blocks”.

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Contact: Alan Spicer (communications@marinetelecom.net)

+1 954 683 3426