Low Cost VoIP Service for Marine Fishermen Development and Performance Evaluation

Fishermen travel far up to 50 nautical miles into the ocean for fishing. They are often stressed and worried about their families as they cannot contact them for many days. Also, it is very difficult to pass any information regarding cyclone or other natural calamities to the fishermen. As there is no scope for mobile communication offshore beyond 8-9 nautical miles due to high operational expenses(OPeX). Traditional communication systems like Marine VHF radios and satellite phones are costly and restricted to only the boats in the ocean. This paper proposes a cost-effective, full duplex communication system for the marine fishermen to communicate among the boats in the ocean as well as with their families on the shore. This paper also presents the performance evaluation results of the system setup in a lab environment. The results obtained from the tests are satisfactory and the system can be implemented on the boats.