By 2025, Singapore will achieve full maritime 5G coverage over its anchorages, fairways, terminals, and boarding grounds. Provided by M1, the dedicated 5G network has been rolling out progressively across Singapore’s port waters since late 2022 and serves as a testbed to pilot and commercialise maritime 5G use cases.
The maritime industry is a critical pillar of Singapore’s economic development, contributing 7% of the nation’s GDP. By using 5G to improve safety, effectiveness and efficiencies in maritime operations, Singapore will be closer to achieving its goal of becoming a premier global hub port and international maritime centre.
“Connectivity is the bedrock of the seamless and secure delivery of goods around the world, from streamlining shipping schedules to forecasting demand and usage of vessels and equipment. This process depends on the availability of telemetry data, payload data, route information, and fuel data from ships. Historically, these data points are accumulated and made available to each port when the ship is in the vicinity of the port through point-to-point communications. But this has racked up high data costs,” Andy Lee, managing director of Cisco Singapore, explains to DigitalEdge.
He continues: “Private 5G, together with WiFi-6e, play an important role in responding to these challenges. A private 5G network enables lower latency communication and faster transmission of data sets. It can also create a standardised set of protocols that can be applied across the industry. This enables greater productivity and energy efficiency for the industry in the long run.”
Parm Sandhu, vice-president for Enterprise 5G Products and Services at NTT, agrees. “With the deployment of 5G networks, maritime organisations could gain greater visibility across the entire supply chain to alleviate key issues such as asset tracking. For instance, 5G connectivity could allow companies to take advantage of diagnostic data in real-time, with digital dashboards and metrics that provide insights into the management of supply chain integrities, security, and sustainability. This way, any gaps in supply chain visibility can readily be identified and mitigated before they cause a problem, improving operational efficiency across the board,” he says.
Innovative maritime 5G use cases
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According to Sandhu, 5G also allows maritime companies to embed complementary emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), into their current operations. “There are innumerable ways for maritime enterprises to leverage the next-level connectivity, high throughput, ultra-low latency, and super-fast speeds of 5G solutions to harness emerging technologies. This includes tapping on it for port and vessel security inspection, cold chain monitoring for integrity, proactive vessel maintenance, port systems automation and fully integrated onshore, on-vessel solutions for the end-to-end journey of goods,” he states.
He gave the example of leveraging 5G and computer vision to generate operation-critical information in real-time on vessels that are unauthorised for transit. That way, ports can ensure early detection, enabling security teams to take the necessary actions according to protocol in the shortest possible time.
Meanwhile, Lee shares that private 5G and Wi-Fi 6e can be used to power automated tugboats that are regularly used to ferry critical supplies, equipment, resources, and other needs required by ships not docked in a port but are in relative proximity. Another use case is 5G-enabled drone surveillance of fleets (mainly cargo and cruise ships). “Combined with information from stationary cameras, these drones can help detect illegal activities and border control. It can also mean the difference between life and death in search and rescue efforts at sea,” he says.
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Obstacles to digitalisation
Although maritime organisations in Asia Pacific are increasingly aware of 5G’s potential, most are still in the trial and proof of concept stage.
A common obstacle to the widespread adoption of 5G, notes Sandhu, is the limited availability and allocation of spectrum for private 5G networks.
Depending on the jurisdiction, not all spectrum bands are available, which leads to inconsistencies with the reliability, cost, and interoperability of private 5G networks. Additionally, the industry currently lacks qualified personnel with the expert knowledge to maintain 5G networks and applications, such as edge computing, cloud services, AI, and cybersecurity.
Parm Sandhu, vice-president for Enterprise 5G Products and Services, NTT
Silos among technology vendors are another barrier. Lee explains: “Maritime technology vendors are disparate and often work in silos, which makes it challenging for port authorities to plan and implement new technology rollouts across the board. Outages or lack of services can severely affect the productivity of vendors, leading to large commercial repercussions so they typically take a careful approach with these rollouts.
“Moreover, port authorities across the globe, particularly in Asia Pacific, usually do not own a private 5G spectrum. This makes large data transfers challenging because networks are quickly overloaded, and there is less control over service-level agreements.”
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Ensuring a smooth sailing 5G journey
To fully benefit from 5G, Lee advises maritime organisations to first identify use cases that would maximise their return on investments.
While the initial investment [to adopt 5G] may seem substantial, organisations need to remember there are longer-term benefits that come with retrofitting systems with 5G connectivity — including greater operational efficiencies and worker safety.
Andy Lee, managing director of Cisco Singapore
Recognising that maritime organisations struggle to identify 5G applications for their business, Cisco is developing blueprints for three use cases in the maritime industry: container terminal automation, cyber and physical security, and port operations and monitoring. It is also helping customers build end-to-end security. This is because as more people, devices and data connect to the network, each endpoint becomes a potential vulnerability.
“We are currently helping one of the world’s most advanced ports to leverage our network solutions to become an intelligent port of the future. Cisco’s technology — from network to data centre to security — delivers a single pane of glass visibility across everything and everywhere for the organisation, enabling them to ensure round-the-clock port operations and stay resilient in a rapidly evolving threats landscape,” says Lee.
Besides that, Lee highlights the need to build a strong maritime 5G ecosystem that can enable partnerships and co-innovation to be scaled across the industry. “This includes having more public-private partnerships to equip the maritime workforce with future-ready skill sets such as understanding how emerging technologies like 5G, IoT and AI can be used in different scenarios both at sea and shore.”
Likewise, Sandhu also believes partnerships are crucial for 5G to become mainstream in the maritime industry. He says: “The nascent nature of the 5G technology means there are not only evolving regulatory standards around its use cases but also a high cost of investment required to facilitate meaningful improvements to the technology. Compounded with the regulation around private 5G spectrum and investment in infrastructure modernisation, government support is absolutely critical for the popularisation of the technology.
“As such, there is a need for a strong partnership between regulators and industry players to build sustainable 5G business use cases and develop strong manpower capabilities to effectively utilise the technologies in the country or region.”
