There are likely to be two new providers of global maritime distress and safety systems (GMDSS) by 2020 as shipping’s regulator attempts to bring the near 30-year-old system up to date with advanced satellite and communications technology.

In the first stage of the IMO's modernisation of the GMDSS service, its Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) has given the green light to US satellite company Iridium and Chinese counterpart BeiDou to progress with their bids to become GMDSS providers.

Their entry will not only help increase competition but improve services. It is also likely that they will fill in some of the remaining gaps in global GMDSS satellite coverage.

Until now, the sole provider has been UK-based Inmarsat.

BeiDou is a little behind Iridium in the IMO’s approval process. The Chinese company still has to be evaluated by the IMO’s Navigation Communication Search and Rescue (NCSR) subcommittee. But it has already launched the satellites for its GMDSS service and is ready to go into operation once the assessment takes place.

Iridium, on the other hand, has yet to complete its Iridium NEXT satellite programme to support the GMDSS but has already finished the NCSR assessment and put its systems through performance-test processes.

Experts suggest both systems could be in place by 2020, although realistically it may take a few more years.

Fresh from the IMO approval, Iridium has already had a poke at its competitors in the market, saying it will be able to provide the service at a “fraction of the price” of existing services.

Inmarsat, by contrast, was more congratulatory to both BeiDou and Iridium.

Lifeline for seafarers

“Together, we must strive to maintain and enhance the exceptionally high standards required by the IMO and demanded by the maritime industry as the lifeline for seafarers at sea,” it said.

However, Inmarsat has also stepped up to the challenge and updated its own “Fleet Safety” package as part of its GMDSS service and won approval from the IMO’s MSC.

The upgraded service was developed for its current FleetBroadBand and Fleet One maritime satellite communication packages. But it is also being advanced to work with its Inmarsat-6 series of satellites, which will be launched from 2020.

The Fleet Safety system improves the GMDSS by allowing web-based chat systems between participants in an emergency response, including the maritime rescue centre, the ships involved and rescue services.

Yet there has been the suggestion that such was the pressure from the US and Chinese administrations at the IMO, which sponsored the applications of Iridium and BeiDou, that the regulator may have acted hastily in allowing their applications to advance.

The issue of compatibility between the three systems has not yet been tackled and there are no indications so far on how this might be resolved.

One issue that will have to be resolved is how a maritime rescue centre can alert ships in the area using all three different systems once it has been notified of an emergency.

It is not yet clear whether the IMO will take on this compatibility issue or if it will leave it for the satellite suppliers and maritime rescue centres to overcome.

The other issue to overcome is where the IMO’s programme to reform safety-related ship-communications systems will progress from here. Some close to the organisation suggest that the workload of the NCSR is already too much for it to take on any more upgrades.

Yet there are issues that need to be resolved in terms of developing old technology with new solutions in today's age of advanced web and satellite-based systems. These include a review of Navtex alert and messaging systems to ships and Long Range Identification and Tracking of Ships (LRIT).

“The pace of technological change appears too fast for the IMO to keep up,” one ship-communications expert suggested.