Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food industries in the world, and salmon farmers are constantly looking for innovative ways to accelerate the growth of their stocks until they are ready for harvest. A crucial means of doing this is to ensure that the sea cages—which hold up to 60,000 fish—have optimal oxygen levels.

This requires reliable communications and remote-control capabilities to monitor data and adjust oxygenation to keep salmon healthy. In Puerto Montt, the gateway to the South of Chile, many salmon farms sit isolated from terrestrial connectivity between fjords and volcanoes. There, reliable broadband connectivity is imperative to the survival of the salmon—and these businesses.

The solution on the job every day and night is based on a Hughes BGAN 9502 machine-to-machine (M2M) satellite terminal, backed up by a Hughes VSAT terminal. Failover logic automatically shifts traffic if the primary connection is interrupted, which can happen unexpectedly in maritime or remote locations. As a result of this high availability solution, the salmon farms can operate around the clock in all kinds of conditions. With such technology to support their efforts to accelerate growth, these salmon farmers can truly boast about the size of their daily catch.