Offshore Oil and Energy Systems Supporting the Need for True High Bandwidth Systems by TOM Davis, OFS
The ability to communicate with offshore platforms has been an issue since the inception of this type of energy recovery process. The advances in the technologies used to erect platforms have provided the energy industry with a large growing number of offshore platforms around the world. These platforms are in geographically diverse areas (North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Arabian Sea, etc.) and provide unique installation and operational issues. However, the one thing common to all of these regional clusters of platforms is the need to network these rigs into a common communications system. This network needs to provide transmission capabilities beyond basic voice and data applications being supported today. There has been a major push by the telecommunications systems providers supplying satellite communications networks to move toward higher bandwidth applications. For basic voice and data applications (with internet access being a driving need), satellite communications systems need to offer a relatively low cost basic solution. However, the meaning of the term “high bandwidth” is in the eye of the beholder and is apparent when running certain applications over a satellite channel. The satellite market supports the communications needs for the majority of the offshore platforms today. To move beyond the current communications applications and deploy state-of-the-art 35