Owners will stop caring which constellation carries their traffic. What matters is the result: that it arrives on time, securely, and with the latency the application requires, using an approved bearer, according to Gert-Jan Panken, vice president and general manager of Inmarsat Maritime
It is a confident pitch, but one backed by the company’s order book. Since NexusWave reached the market in late 2024, the bonded connectivity service has secured more than 3,000 vessels, with over 1,500 now live. The architecture combines Global Xpress Ka band, low Earth orbit capacity, coastal LTE where available and a layer of L band for resilience into one logical link, for a single flat monthly fee.
“The market is starting to resonate with and appreciate the unlimited data, the bonding of the services and the fact that it is really secure,” Mr Panken told Riviera on the sidelines of June’s Posidonia exhibition in Athens. “In today’s geopolitical situation, cybersecurity is becoming more and more of an issue.”
The customer list spans every segment and the figures behind the pitch are concrete. EXMAR expects a 20 per cent fleetwide saving by consolidating with one provider, while sea trials have delivered downloads of up to 340 Mbps, uploads of up to 80 Mbps and availability above 99.9 per cent. For owners chasing predictable costs and an end to usage overages, those numbers matter most.
Three subjects now dominate any serious conversation about maritime connectivity: Starlink; crew; and geopolitics. NexusWave has a practical answer to each.
Living with LEO
Low Earth orbit operators have reset expectations around latency and price, and rather than resist that shift, Inmarsat has introduced a feature it calls Bring Your Own Network. The idea is to fold almost any third-party bearer, whether local LTE, an alternative Ku band carrier or a competing LEO constellation, into the bonded service so it inherits the same encryption and traffic management instead of operating as a separate unmanaged link.
“The underlying carrier, whether Ka band or LTE, is becoming less and less important”
The commercial logic, said Mr Panken, is even sharper. “What LEO operators are doing is driving a new range of demand,” Mr Panken said, “and the good thing is that NexusWave is able to supply that as well.” The strategy is to incorporate multiple carriers, manage the orchestration, and compete on security, resilience and single-vendor accountability rather than on price per megabit. He acknowledges the proposition is not without competition and does come with something of a premium as it’s a fully managed service. But the broad direction of travel, he said, is clear. Hybrid, multi-orbit solutions are now the baseline, and dependence on a single network is becoming the exception.
Crew as a lever
Seafarers remain the largest consumers of bandwidth at sea, and they are increasingly choosing employers on the quality of that connectivity.
There is, however, a countervailing view from shore managers, some of whom prefer crew to gather in the mess rather than disappear into a handset around the clock.
That is why Inmarsat’s Crew Hub, its crew-focused connectivity and welfare service for ships that includes a mobile app and onboard hotspot for affordable internet access, is pitched partly as a crew management tool: “Operators request a balance between rest time, social time with your crew peers on the vessel, and time spent with your loved ones at home.”
The issue plays out differently across segments. Certain offshore support and accommodation vessels carry larger crews and have higher expectations, while bulkers and tankers are leaner operations. The underlying point is the same: connectivity now helps recruit and retain seafarers.
Regulatory and compliance context
Connectivity is becoming a compliance task as well. With some vessels unable to transit the Strait of Hormuz and others spending longer at sea, data use has climbed in a pattern Mr Panken likened to the Corona pandemic, when crews could not get ashore, though he judged the networks well able to carry the load.
The sharper change is regulatory, and China is the pointed case. In December 2025 the Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration issued what was reported as the country’s first penalty against a foreign vessel for unauthorised use of a Starlink terminal after it kept transmitting inside Chinese waters. The London P&I Club has warned members that breaches draw fines of CNY 30,000 to CNY 500,000, and that the connection, which is unlicensed in China, must be switched off on entry.
Inmarsat’s response is procedural as much as technical. “If a vessel comes into a region where a carrier isn’t endorsed, we will make sure that carrier is switched off,” Mr Panken said. A large regulatory team and automatic geofencing move the compliance risk off the bridge and into the network. The cheapest link, owners are learning, can carry a regulatory tail that surfaces only at a port state inspection.
Capacity outlook
Fresh satellite capacity underpins the commercial story. ViaSat-3 F1 entered service in 2024. F2 launched on an Atlas V in November 2025 and is completing in-orbit tests ahead of entering service over the Americas. F3, covering Asia Pacific, flew on a Falcon Heavy on 27 April, with service due by late summer. Each adds steerable Ka band that Inmarsat will route into NexusWave. Security, now inseparable from the connectivity debate, comes from separating corporate, operational technology and crew traffic behind encrypted SD WAN overlays. This is what flag states and classification societies increasingly expect of digital fleets.
Closing, Mr Panken’s returned to his original theme. “The underlying carrier, whether Ka band or LTE, is becoming less and less important. Our customers are getting more and more into outcomes.” On that view, the test is whether a latency-sensitive application travels the right path at the right moment, not which network carries it. This is a coherent position: own the orchestration and bonding layer, stay agnostic about the bearers beneath, and sell security and compliance as the durable value. The next 18 months are likely to be telling, as ViaSat-3 capacity arrives and the regulatory map splinters further.
