Ship-to-Shore E-mail Communications for Mariners by Internet Standards and Technology

There are some shipboard E-mail Internet gateways or servers on the market which of course can be used for ordinary ship-to-shore communications, such as telex or telefax. However, this does not seem to be enough for merchant ships as general E-mail communications because a special E-mail address or a special server with administration must be used, not a standard communications protocol. This paper describes a system for mariner on merchant ships, designed and tested by the authors. The system has also been made and installed for ordinary E-mail communications from an ocean-going vessel by satellite and maritime telephony with modem.