Stratos Acquires Assets of Blue Ocean Wireless

--Stratos continues selling BOW shipboard GSM services under new brand GSM Oceanwide--

BETHESDA, MD, July 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ - Stratos BV, the leading global provider of advanced mobile and fixed-site remote communications solutions, today announced it has purchased most of the operational assets of Blue Ocean Wireless Ltd. (BOW). BOW was a provider of shipboard GSM services that enabled crewmembers to use their personal GSM phones to communicate with family and friends by voice and SMS.

As part of the acquisition, Stratos assumes responsibility for providing services to most of BOW's customers, including many large commercial shipping companies worldwide. Since July 1, BOW customers have been receiving invoices directly from Stratos. Stratos will continue to market and sell BOW's services to existing and new customers, under the new brand GSM Oceanwide.

Stratos has a strong reputation for providing ship managers with innovative crew-communications solutions, to support the recruitment and retention of well-trained seafarers. Increasingly, crew members are demanding the communications capabilities they have onshore, including the use of their own mobile devices for SMS and voice calling.

Stratos offers a variety of crew-welfare services to meet these needs, including GSM Oceanwide, prepaid Stratos ChatCards and AmosConnect Crew. Stratos also offers a wide range of value-added services to help ensure that shipmanagers achieve optimal performance, management control and cost efficiency of their crew-communications solutions.

"Today, more than ever, savvy shipmanagers understand that offering a wide range of communications options is critical to attracting and retaining qualified crewmembers," said Stratos President and CEO Jim Parm. "Each day we work with these shipmanagers to ensure they can offer advanced voice, private email, and SMS services that are powerful, easy to use and available away from the bridge."

Parm concluded, "Our acquisition of the BOW assets improves our ability to offer affordable GSM services to our global customer base."

Stratos is the largest supplier of mobile satellite services to the maritime industry, with communications to more than 40,000 maritime terminals worldwide. Stratos' industry-leading portfolio of maritime broadband satellite services includes FleetBroadband, FleetBroadband Flat Fee, FBBPlus, Iridium OpenPort and the new VSAT solution Inmarsat XpressLink.

Stratos Maritime-Communications Solutions Feature The Stratos Advantage
With the benefit of The Stratos Advantage, Stratos maritime-communications solutions are elevated far above baseline services. The value-added services comprising The Stratos Advantage, including Stratos Dashboard, provide users with cost and traffic control, high-usage metering, firewall management, data optimization, real-time traffic overviews, instant remote provisioning, high security options, easy VPN access, messaging services and a full range of IP options.

In addition to offering The Stratos Advantage, Stratos works with application partners to deliver broadband business solutions in key maritime business areas. These solutions include voyage management, remote management, IT management and cargo management, which help reduce fuel and operations costs and improve crew and customer satisfaction.

About Stratos
Stratos is the world's trusted leader for vital communications. Stratos offers the most powerful and extensive portfolio of remote communications solutions including mobile and fixed satellite and microwave services. More than 20,000 customers use Stratos products and industry-leading value-added services to optimize communications performance. Stratos serves U.S. and international government, military, first responder, NGO, oil and gas, industrial, maritime, aeronautical, enterprise, and media users on seven continents and across the world's oceans. Stratos is a wholly owned subsidiary of Inmarsat plc. For more information, visit www.stratosglobal.com.

SOURCE Stratos Global Corporation

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