Stratos Selected as Finalist for Technical Innovation at the Seatrade Asia Awards 2010

--Stratos Dashboard is recognized for its ability to help ship managers derive maximum benefit from FleetBroadband--

BETHESDA, MD, April 6 /PRNewswire/ - Stratos Global Corporation, the leading global provider of advanced mobile and fixed-site remote communications solutions, today announced it has been selected as a finalist for Technical Innovation at the Seatrade Asia Awards 2010. The award will be presented at the third-annual Seatrade Asia Awards gala dinner ceremony at Singapore's Shangri-La Hotel April 26.

The Seatrade Asia Awards signal the beginning of Singapore Maritime Week 2010, a strategic gathering of leading maritime executives from Singapore and around the world.

For the Technical Innovation Award, the independent judging panel of the Seatrade Asia Awards has selected as a finalist Stratos Dashboard for FleetBroadband, an online communications management solution that enables ship managers to derive maximum cost control, traffic control and data optimization from their usage of Inmarsat's FleetBroadband mobile broadband satellite service.

Stratos Dashboard enables ship managers to activate, deactivate, suspend, resume and make changes to their FleetBroadband SIM cards. It provides a real-time overview of all traffic usage, including completed calls and calls in progress. Stratos Dashboard puts users in complete control of all provisioning and monitoring.

Stratos Dashboard for FleetBroadband has been tested and deployed on more than 3,000 vessels, including those operated by the Royal Netherlands Navy, Bernhard Schulte Group, Albacora Group, Wallem Shipmanagement, MPC Shipping and many others.

"In just three years, the Seatrade Asia Awards has become the Asian maritime industry's most prestigious awards program, recognizing excellence in a wide range of categories," said Stratos President and CEO Jim Parm. "We are truly honored to be selected as a finalist for the 2010 Technical Innovation Award."

Parm concluded, "Stratos has a strong history of helping ship managers derive the most value from their broadband satellite communications service. Qualifying for this important award acknowledges the critical role Stratos Dashboard for FleetBroadband plays in providing secure, cost-effective communications during these challenging economic times."

The maritime industry has embraced Inmarsat's FleetBroadband as the broadband satellite service of choice. Since FleetBroadband's introduction in 2007, Stratos has accounted for 60 percent of the more than 5,000 FleetBroadband units deployed on vessels of all types and sizes. This market-share leadership is due in large part to the recognized value of Stratos Dashboard for FleetBroadband.

With Stratos Dashboard, usage of FleetBroadband (and soon Iridium OpenPort) can be controlled on a variety of access levels, including service group and individual officer or crew member. For controlled Internet access, Stratos Dashboard includes a firewall which can be fleetwide managed online by the shipmanager. For monitoring traffic and usage, Stratos Dashboard includes a credit control tool for: creating credit-control groups; assigning credit to SIM cards; setting alert thresholds; and sending out alert messages. Stratos Dashboard contains all traffic types, including background IP, voice, SMS, ISDN and streaming.

The latest version of Stratos Dashboard, introduced in November 2009, includes a new suspend option known as Suspend Data. This functionality can be activated manually or as part of the application's Credit Control and High Volume Usage Metering features. Stratos Dashboard users now have the option to suspend only the data portion of their service - or resume all services other than data.

Stratos offers a wide range of value-added services to provide ship managers with optimal communications performance, management control and cost efficiency. Stratos is the largest supplier of mobile satellite services to the maritime industry, with communications to more than 40,000 maritime terminals worldwide. In addition to FleetBroadband, Stratos' industry-leading portfolio of maritime broadband satellite services includes Iridium OpenPort and the VSAT solutions OceanVSAT and StratosITek.

About Seatrade

Founded in 1970, Seatrade is a well-established brand in the international cruise and maritime community. Its publications, events, management training, awards programs and web sites cover every aspect of cruise and maritime industry and are known and respected around the globe. Seatrade's principal strength is its ability to bring key people together, encouraging innovation and facilitating better communication within the industry. Seatrade is based in Colchester, UK, with regional offices in Dubai, Singapore, and representatives in all major maritime centers and cruise destinations across the globe. For more information, visit www.seatrade-global.com.

About Seatrade Asia Awards

Seatrade has been the pioneer of shipping awards programs since 1988. The Asia Awards program was initiated in 2008 to raise the profile of maritime development across Asia and to underscore excellence in the fields of innovation; safety and quality; social and environmental responsibility; enterprise and achievement, together with education and training. The Seatrade Asia Awards trophy is a reflection of excellence, innovation and success in critical maritime sectors. For more information, visit www.seatradeasia-online.com/awards.

About The Stratos Advantage

Stratos customers fully utilize The Stratos Advantage, a suite of value-added services that help elevate FleetBroadband, BGAN and SwiftBroadband from Stratos far above baseline offerings. These value-added services, including Stratos Dashboard, provide users with cost control, firewall management, full traffic information, pre-paid facilities, high security options, easy VPN access, messaging services and full IP range. More information on FleetBroadband from Stratos is available at www.thepowerofmobilebroadband.com/fleetbroadband.

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. For more information, visit www.stratosglobal.com.

SOURCE Stratos Global Corporation