“Stop, hey what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down”

In real shooting wars, spring is traditionally the start of campaigning season. Soldiers emerge from their dugouts and form up, ready to receive orders of the new offensive. Weapons are cleaned and primed, provisions re-stocked, maps updated.

In maritime communications almost the opposite is happening. Having fought a year-long campaign in 2012 and a bitter winter engagement into the first quarter of this year, something close to peace appears to have broken out between satcom’s warring factions.

It’s like the scene in many a war movie when the NCO turns to the officer and says “I don’t like it sir, it’s too quiet.” The recent Sea-Asia show was a case in point.

There were some nice Widgets from SingTel (which also had a stand to gladden the eye of many a sea-dog, while arguably doing somewhat less for gender equality) and some contract announcements here and there, but apart from that not much to set the heart racing.

Many of the familiar players were there but the message seemed to be more ‘keep calm and carry on’ than ‘once more into the breach’.

That makes sense. Consider the situation across what we might at a stretch call the Rebel Alliance. Intelsat looked to have timed the equity market rally right but its IPO eventually priced below expectations. Whether that or its recent launch failure have any impact on its plans for EPIC remains open to some question.

Iridium used the recent Satellite 2013 conference to firm up plans for Iridium Next, laying out ambitious schedules for the build programme but seems to be as focussed on Aireon and the aero sector right now as maritime.

Globalstar too appears confident it can restructure itself sufficiently to secure the funding it needs to put its launch plans into practice, though it seems to be testing investors’ patience.

At this point it would make sense to comment on O3B but since they consistently ignore any requests for information (and seem to have instructed their clients to do the same) we’ll have to assume that plans for cruise market domination continue to take shape in the dormant volcano (or similar) that they use for an HQ.

The news from KVH suggests reinforcement too – a deal with Iridium to provide a connection in polar regions when users are outside VSAT or FB coverage areas. From their point of view a neat way to work around the price rises on FB pay as you go, though you can’t help thinking they have spiked their own guns rather than turning them on the old lady.

Having asked Inmarsat what they were up to during the Singapore show, the answer was ‘business development’ rather than ‘marketing offensive’. The appearance of Frank Coles on SinoShip’s Maritime CEO column doesn’t really change that in my view.

There is a good reason for that. At the CMA Shipping 2013 conference last month Coles sat at the end of a very long panel speakers about maritime technology innovation. Each was interesting in their own way and most had a story to tell of the kind of operational insights and efficiencies that could be gained from greater use of data. Oh and the tidal wave of data that could be generated by crew communications if only they were given unrestricted web access.

Coles had the task for once of delivering the reality check – some of this was possible now, some would come in due course and some might not happen any time soon. It was a salutary lesson for the dreamers and a reminder to regular students of this subject that cart and horse must be in the right order to pull ammunition to the troops in the front line as well as hauling away the casualties.

I didn’t attend the ACI Maritime Communications conference at the end of March but I understand from those that were there that the face-off between Coles and self-styled nemesis Alan Gottleib was more phoney war than shock and awe.

There are solid reasons why this is a positive development. The next few years will see the maritime industry begin to emerge from the downturn but this will happen in a piecemeal and messy way. Anyone imagining there will be a return to the good old days where all boats rise on the incoming tide should probably get out now.

That gives the satellite industry and its technology partners some breathing space in which to actually do the work necessary to deliver the next generation of services about which it has been talking for so long. As noted above, financing has to be nailed down, orders placed, satellites built and launched, ancillary systems developed and some cases technologies created for the first time.

Alliances and treaties need to be shored up too – between vendors, distributors and partners – and in the process we could see some of the mergers and consolidation so long predicted.

This peace cannot be expected to last forever of course. In early June the DigitalShip roadshow moves on to Oslo and Nor-Shipping, where the first Maritime CIO Forum will be held on 5 June. There will be some presentations but the afternoon session will see a high level debate with representatives from the vendors and partners and I hope industry users, moderated by me since the editor will by then be knee-deep in nappies.

By then perhaps we will have heard more about what happens next but even so I think we should be prepared to sit this one out for a while longer. There may be a temporary ceasefire but the war is far from over.

Or as Stephen Stills put it so eloquently in Buffalo Springfield’s ‘For What It’s Worth’ “…battle lines been drawn, nobody’s right when everybody’s wrong…”