4.1.4 Whitelisting of IP Addresses for Loft Multiplex on Vessel's Smart TV

This Vessel IT Admin guide helps you manage firewall traffic permissions to connect FrontM’s Loft Multiplex IP TV service to the existing TV onboard your vessels against the assigned Crew WiFi user account with appropriate data allowance. 

Typically, vessels with Smart TVs (or TVs with Smart sticks) are connected to the Crew Wifi network, enabling the TV to access content services from the internet. Also often, a dedicated WiFi account with an appropriate allowance (e.g. 7GB per week) is granted. The crew may utilise the allowance to access content on the TV.

However, it is important to note that typical content services and OTT apps are not suitable for communal viewing in the common areas of the vessel, nor optimised for the best use of available bandwidth and internet allowance. Therefore risks need to be managed for the best crew experience and usage of satellite internet. That’s why, Loft Multiplex is specifically designed to overcome these issues, with its appropriate IP rights for communal viewing on ships and its high compression capabilities. Typically Loft Multiplex takes 200-250MB of data per hour of continuous viewing, compared to other standard OTT services which require 10X more data. 

Therefore, FrontM recommends that Vessel Managers configure the dedicated WiFi account for TV use such that: 

1. Access is permitted only for Loft Multiplex service on the TV interface by applying the below white-listing rules
2. Access to other OTT apps and generic streaming or content services is prevented by black-listing all other sources 

This way, internet data allocated for TV use can be dedicated to Loft Multiplex access to achieve the best data utilisation results and safety.

Traffic permission configuration: FrontM platform uses a fixed FQDN list making it easy for vessel firewalls to be configured. Please permit traffic to these FQDNs on the network for the TV device / WiFi account.