Global Marine Networks (GMN), leaders in advancing satellite data speed and services, has entered into a distribution agreement with Vobal Technologies.

Vobal Technologies' VoIP technology has enabled dozens of leading wireless carriers, broadband service providers and satellite communications companies to offer powerful, differentiated VoIP enabled services while improving subscriber profitability.

Vobal Technologies' team has built a reputation as a global leader in the development and delivery of these low cost, high quality solutions.

As part of the pact, Global Marine Networks will make voice over IP (VoIP) services available to maritime customers by incorporating Vobal technology as an integrated part of GMN's RedPort Global maritime services.

Satellite VoIP services will offer up to 20 minutes of talk time per MB with excellent voice quality.

"RedPort Global satellite VoIP services are a complete voice solution for maritime VSAT and FleetBroadband users," said Dr. Luis Soltero, president and CTO of GMN, in a statement.

Dr. Luis Soltero said that all RedPort VoIP hardware will include a full PBX (News - Alert) to integrate or function as a vessel's primary communications system; prepaid voice access lets ship operators sell service easily to crew or passengers to create a new revenue stream, and satellite VoIP calls consume as little as 6 kbps thanks to the integration of Vobal technology.

Officials with GMN pointed out that in addition to satellite VoIP, RedPort Global offers a complete suite of satellite network management solutions for maritime and ship-to-shore communications. The RedPort wXa routers are Inmarsat (News - Alert)-certified for use with Inmarsat VLA accounts for FleetBroadband service.

Company officials claimed that with RedPort Global, VSAT, FleetBroadband and other IP-based data users can save up to 80 percent on their satellite airtime usage while accelerating data throughput an average of three to five times while generating new revenue streams through a host of features including: prepaid email and Internet services for crew morale, passenger sales, or ship's operations; data compression; caching and control and least-cost routing, failover and load-balancing among other such things.