Comments in the lobbies – and at the UKHO reception on Tuesday night - heard more than once, was that eNavigation, ECDIS and ENCs were all very well but surely all this ship-shore communication would play havoc with the satellite communications bill.
A delegate wanted to know was the equipment good enough to make the process efficient. “It’s chicken and egg,” replied Rob Grool. “If you start having a big demand for something then there’s more usage and the cost comes down.”
The problem he thought – and where the bills might spike – was that the shoreside treated everything as urgent for commercial reasons, which led to overload and ultimately the undermining of what was trying to be achieved.
Nick Lemon agreed that exploiting the I in ECDIS was a question of information management. “No more information is needed – what we need is for some solutions to emerge.”
