As ever, Florida’s Fort Lauderdale show offered our US team a great opportunity to catch up with current and prospective customers. Which now brings us to our final show of the year and one we’re always delighted to support, the Antigua Charter Yacht Show taking place in English Harbour and Falmouth Harbour. Running from 4 to 9 December, our US team will be in action once again walking the show to promote e3’s brilliant ‘one stop shop’ offering, including our range of regional SIMS – BIG DATA CARIBBEAN, BIG DATA EUROPE which covers the French Caribbean and our new Bahamas-only SIM which you can read a little more about later.
Meet Sharon Philips – US Sales Manager
When it comes to the Antigua show, one person who knows it better than possibly anyone else, is Sharon Philips our US Sales Manager. Originally from London, Sharon is the token “Brit” in the US office, where her English accent and extensive dockwalking experience, has given her the title of “Queen of Dockwalking”.
“The highlight for me every year are the FLIBS and in Antigua shows. Although very hard work walking the marinas in the heat, it’s reassuring that many of the captains are interested in the latest technology and innovations that will make a difference to their vessel.”
Prior to working for e3, Sharon worked as a marketing consultant, specializing in technology, marine electronics and satellite communications, so her strong technical background made it an easy transfer from marketing to sales. With that background, Sharon can explain our services in an easy-to-understand format and break down the technical jargon. This helps the decision process, especially when proposals are often forwarded to owners and management companies who are not as familiar with the technical side of communications.
She says that one of the biggest challenges in the job is that just when you think you know a boat and their staff, the boat is suddenly up for sale, the team changes and it’s back to square one. On the other hand, she says that no-one else can beat e3’s level of service and extensive product portfolio and one of the highlights of the job is putting together a customised communications proposal for a solution that will result in more bandwidth, increased efficiency, a better price – and hopefully a happy captain.
Looking to the future she is excited by the imminent arrival of LEO Satellites: “they are expected to be active ln 2021 and I can’t wait to see how that impacts the satellite communications world and what it can do for our customers – it will have a huge impact on the speeds and pricing we currently offer.”
It’s been an exciting year for Sharon, with two new grandbabies. When she’s not playing “Grandma” she enjoys keeping fit and runs 3-4 times a week early morning around her neighbourhood as well as step and cardio classes. And as if that isn’t enough, Sharon is also a great cook, and nothing gives her more pleasure, but to host a dinner party.
Satellite options for the Caribbean
– Inmarsat, Iridium, Speedcast, Marlink and eSAT
e3 offers an unbeatable choice of satellite services for the Caribbean. Two bullet-proof options are Inmarsat’s FleetBroadband service and the new Iridium Certus service, both L band services which are robust and reliable but do not provide the data speeds a yacht likes. To satisfy these data speeds we have upgraded Ku band services from our main suppliers, Speedcast and Marlink, which can provide a maximum contended service of 40Mbps down and 2Mbps up. These days the demand for faster uplink is growing due to social media uploads of photos and videos and in the Caribbean, guests should be recommended to upload their photos when back in port in the evening.
Also, for the Caribbean we would highly recommend Inmarsat FleetXpress (FX) – a new Ka band service and the only VSAT service that is global, seamless, reliable and simply works. We can provide a dedicated service up to 10Mbps down and 4Mpbs up. The system includes FleetBroadband as a backup, which it switches to automatically, so is very reliable. Just recently one of our clients who is in the Galapagos Islands told us they were the only vessel there with connectivity!
Finally, the Kymeta flat panel using eSAT is a good solution for the Caribbean and we have about twenty yachts using these with one of the most prominent being the motor yacht that spearheaded the disaster recovery in the northern Bahamas.
Bahamas only SIM
Just to remind any readers who are heading out to the Bahamas this season, e3 now have a Bahamas-only SIM. They’re fantastic-value and each sale helps support YachtAid Global. They provide 125GB data for only $350 and are valid for 30 days, which can be extended if necessary.
Season’s greetings
It’s been another memorable year at e3 and as it heads to a close, it’s time for all of us to escape from the office, enjoy some special family time and generally recharge those batteries. I would like to take this opportunity to wish a very happy Christmas to all my readers, to all our customers for their continuing support and to all the staff at e3 for all their brilliant work and dedication.
e3 systems
+34 971 404 208
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