Fishing operations in Norway face a demanding combination of environmental and regulatory pressures.

• Harsh and unpredictable weather. Vessels operating in the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, and Barents Sea contend with the clash of cold Arctic air and warmer, moisture-laden Atlantic air, producing unpredictable conditions that can shift from calm seas to gale-force winds with little warning. Winter months bring an added hazard in the form of polar lows, intense, fast-forming low-pressure systems that can escalate from calm to storm-force winds within minutes, occurring on average 12 to 15 times per season between October and May. Further north and in winter, vessels also face icing risk near the ice edge, alongside limited daylight hours and reduced access to emergency support in the more remote fishing grounds.
• Remote offshore operating areas. Much of Norway’s most productive fishing grounds lie far from port and outside easy reach of search and rescue services. Vessels working the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, and Barents Sea can be many hours, and in the Barents Sea, sometimes days, from the nearest harbour or coastguard response. If equipment fails, a crew member is injured, or a vessel runs into difficulty, help takes considerably longer to arrive than it would closer to shore. This isolation raises the stakes of any operational issue and makes accurate, continuous vessel tracking essential, so operators know a vessel’s position if contact is lost, and so emergency services can be directed to the right location without delay.
• Limited LTE Cat 1 BIS cellular coverage in key fishing grounds. Standard LTE Cat 1 BIS cellular coverage is shore-based and only extends a limited distance offshore, further reduced by Norway’s fjord-heavy, mountainous coastline, which blocks signal propagation. Vessels fishing the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, and Barents Sea routinely operate well beyond this range, particularly as voyage durations can be longer. Once out of range, a cellular-only tracking system loses contact entirely, creating gaps in position reporting, removing real-time visibility for fleet operators, and eliminating a critical communications link in the event of an emergency. A solution that is entirely reliable in switching from cellular to satellite was needed.
• Increasing monitoring and compliance requirements. Norwegian fisheries are regulated by the Directorate of Fisheries (Fiskeridirektoratet), which mandates satellite-based position reporting (VMS) and electronic catch reporting (ERS) for commercial fishing vessels. These requirements currently apply to vessels over 10 metres in length overall, and are being extended to vessels between 8 and 10 metres from 2026, alongside a move toward full electronic position and catch reporting across the entire registered fishing fleet. Operators must be able to demonstrate consistent, accurate position reporting regardless of location, an obligation a cellular-only system cannot reliably meet.
• Demand for greater fleet transparency and visibility. Beyond regulatory obligations, vessel owners and skippers are increasingly looking for platforms that can give them a high level of operational insight into their fleet. Remote Electronic Monitoring allows owners and crew to know where each vessel is, how it’s performing, and how effort relates to catch. And in real-time. This allows operations to plan and make informed decisions.