The world’s largest shipping company, Maersk Line has teamed up with Ericsson for improved interaction with vessels, proactive issue resolution and prompt information sharing with customers. Ericsson will introduce end-to-end integration and deploy mobile and satellite communication to its entire vessel fleet.

The Maersk Line has a  500 vessels strong fleet and over the next two years it will outfit 400 of these vessels with Ericsson antennas and GSM base stations, with upgrades to be made to the remaining vessels soon after.

As part of the agreement, Ericsson will provide seven years of global managed services support, including 24/7 network monitoring and onboard maintenance services in a large number of ports across all major regions.

“We believe in a Networked Society, where connectivity will only be the starting point for new ways of innovating, collaborating and socializing. The result will be automated and simplified processes, higher productivity, real-time information allowing quicker, more informed decision making and problem solving,” said Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson.

For the shipping industry, mobile communication provides the opportunity to employ new and efficient ways of addressing fleet management, managing delivery times, improving interaction with vessels, enabling proactive issue resolution and prompt information sharing with customers and even improving energy efficiency.

“This will provide us to improve our communication with our colleagues at sea, as well as our service to customers, are many, and we will certainly be looking at all of them in near future,” said Søren Toft, Vice President Maersk Line Operations.