MobileWeb: Software for Mobile Web/E-mail access over Commercial Satellite Links

Commercial satellite services provide a convenient mechanism for over-the-horizon communications among ships, aircraft, and on-shore information sources. The Coast Guard has identified the potential of maritime Web and messaging (e-mail) applications implemented over commercial satellite links to subtantially increase the effectiveness of Coast Guard operations. However, there are two major impediments to the widespread deployment of this technology today, i.e., high operational costs and poor performance of the TCP/IP protocol over satellite links. The Phase I SBIR effort designed an innovative software solution, called MobiWeb, to address these problems. MobiWeb delivers the following benefits: 1.. Savings in operating costs of up to 95% for Coast Guard Web applications implemented over commercial satellite services; 2. Pervasive connectivity between offshore and onshore networks enabling real-time messaging between mobile clients and fixed network resources, as welll as between mobile clients; 3. Tunalbe TCP/IP stack that significantly speeds Web page accesses compared to existing TCP/IP implementations; 4.Full compatibility with existing Web servers and browsers. The Phase II effort will build a prototype of MobiWeb and demonstrate its capabilities for cost-effective and efficient implementation of satellite-based Web and e-mail applications for the Coast Guard