Our Reawakening
It’s happening at last – the sun is rising again on a new normal world! The 2020 season is starting two to three months late, and it will be interesting to see whether it extends those extra two to three months into the autumn. At e3 we’ve managed to maintain business as usual throughout the crisis, and now it’s all hands on deck to help yachts get ready for the delayed start to the season!
Let us know if we can help you.
Following on from my March, April and June special column entitled “Managing Owners and Guest Expectation by using the Correct Communications solutions” I am now onto the last part, which is very relevant to the current state of the world.
Managing Owners and Guest Expectation by using the Correct Communications solutions
Part 4: Maintaining 100% connectivity service for guests
The relevance I refer to above, is that a yacht can now be used as a 5-star, exotic, isolation escape pod that’s on the move. If the yacht has enough supplies with good communications that work 100% of the time and good company, then what’s more to want?
I’ve said many times, good connectivity is almost as important as the water the yacht floats on!! The last thing the owner or guests want in their isolation escape pod is to lose their connectivity with their lives ashore, otherwise they will be forced to return home.
So some questions: Are you given a hard time when there’s no connectivity? Is keeping all the systems running easy, or is it a nightmare? How often do you have failures?
Wouldn’t it be great to have a proactive remote monitoring service that checks that all your kit is working in the background, and leaves you to get on with looking after your guests?
This what our Active Support Service does.
Firstly, our Active Support Software constantly monitors all the critical network infrastructure on-board, and alerts our staff as soon as it detects an issue. This is done remotely. It lets us be proactive rather than reactive. Rather than waiting for you to contact us with a problem, we are permanently there, and the first you’ll hear about it is when we call you to tell you it’s been fixed.
Maintenance is key to the smooth operation of any system, and that’s why it’s the second component of our Active Support Agreement. Our support engineers regularly log in to the systems in question and check the backups, check the security and keep the platform in-line with the best practices of the manufacturers.
In addition, the yacht receives priority technical support for all matters covered by the Agreement. This ensures that even during the busiest of times in the season you’re first in line to get to the senior level of engineers that you need to solve the problems.
This is one of the most sensible investments a yacht can make.
Josh, our Head of IT, talks more about our services at the end of this column.
During the lockdown, we have seen some rather bizarre conspiracy theories perpetuated on social media, that have spread and grown rather like the virus itself.
The 5G Conspiracy Theory Rebuff Time!
The myths around the safety of 5G technology have gained significant social media traction during lockdown and the attention has, sadly, resulted in a lot of criminal, destructive vandalism across the whole of Europe with the burning down of communication towers that hosted communication antenna for a variety of services, not just 5G.
This criminal activity has upset and endangered the continuity of communications for many people and particularly for the medical and emergency services, thus reducing their ability to fight the virus and save lives.
The following provides answers from the respective authorities, to some of the common questions that have surfaced in print, broadcast and social media.
Can 5G spread COVID-19?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that there is no link between 5G and COVID-19 and confirms that viruses cannot travel on radio waves and/or mobile networks. The WHO maintains that COVID-19 is spread through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks. Therefore, the vandals burning down masts fall into a higher classification category for spreading COVID-19 than 5G!
Is 5G carcinogenic?
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which reviews evidence for cancer hazards, classifies radio frequency signals in the same group as eating pickled vegetables i.e. that there was limited evidence that they would cause cancer in humans. Eating processed meat falls into a higher classification than radio signals!
What research has taken place on 5G before we can claim it’s safe for consumers?
Over the past two decades, extensive studies on radio signals used by mobile technologies have been undertaken, and research continues. The WHO stated in February 2020 that, “To date, and after much research performed, no adverse health effect has been causally linked with exposure to wireless technologies, provided that the overall exposure remains below the international guidelines, no consequences for public health are anticipated.”
Does 5G interfere with weather forecasting?
Again, technical studies conducted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) confirm that 5G will not cause any harm to existing services, including weather forecasting. There is a wide separation between the weather forecasting spectrum and 5G that 5G presents no risk to weather forecasting.
Meet Joshua Scott – Head of IT
Originally from Essex, Joshua moved to Mallorca in the spring of 2016. “I was originally drawn to Mallorca due to my love of cycling and its picturesque towns and villages. I knew nothing of the yachting industry, nor how important it is here.”
“One of the biggest challenges when joining e3 Systems was jumping into a whole new industry. I spent the previous eight years working as an IT Engineer in London for architectural and construction firms; there’s obviously certain quirks and pitfalls when working with super yachts especially when compared to the large commercial spaces I was used to.”
Joshua enjoys the travelling associated with the job and the unique puzzles it brings up from time to time, with an interesting one cropping up recently. “During lockdown, a client in Greece had a catastrophic hardware failure on a critical server that we were not responsible for, however they appealed to us for help. Usually, I would be on a plane and heading to the boat with new hardware but obviously this has not been possible over the last few months. Instead, we got the client to send the failed kit to our offices which I stripped down and performed a data recovery procedure on. With the help of a similar server chassis in our workshop, I managed to extract the data they needed to get their systems running again on brand new hardware, ship it back to the client and talk the Chief Engineer through the final part of the commissioning.”
Joshua has exceptionally high standards for his work and is especially proud of bringing that to e3 Systems’ clients. “Our IT department doesn’t just work for clients who contract e3 Systems for communications. We have a good reputation for support and a lot of that is down to vessels having Active Support Agreements with us, where we actively monitor networking devices and servers remotely. We’re able to detect issues before they happen, or before the crew and importantly, guests, notice!”
Joshua is currently working on a new hosted email platform for our clients, based on Office 365. This is due to the overwhelming success of us switching to Office 365 for our internal IT and communications, which has helped us continue working seamlessly and safely throughout the COVID-19 crisis.
Always with one eye on the future, Joshua said “I’m looking forward to the wider adoption of Wi-Fi 6 and mGig technologies, with potentially fibre-like speeds over Wi-Fi and existing ethernet cabling standards.”
Roger Horner
For further info on e3 VSAT and SUPER DATA
e3 systems
+34 971 404 208
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