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A Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) is effectively a maritime object's international ''maritime
telephone number A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices f ...
'', a temporarily assigned UID, issued by that object's current
flag state The flag state of a merchant vessel is the jurisdiction under whose laws the vessel is registered or licensed, and is deemed the nationality of the vessel. A merchant vessel must be registered and can only be registered in one jurisdiction, but ma ...
, (unlike an IMO, which is a global forever UID). An MMSI comprises a series of nine digits, consisting
Maritime Identification Digits
(country-codes), concatenated with a specific identifier. Whenever an object is re-flagged, a new MMSI must be assigned. A 'maritime object' could be anything which requests an MMSI identifier. e.g. a vessel, fixed offshore installation, mobile unit, maritime aircraft, coast station, etc. Communications may be routed to 'individual objects', or to 'groups of objects'. A group call to objects can be based on an object's - locale, owner/operator/fleet, type, etc. or combinations thereof. MMSI are formed in such a way that the identity or part thereof can be used by telephone and telex subscribers connected to the general telecommunications network to call any of these objects automatically. Communications are sent in digital form over a
radio frequency Radio frequency (RF) is the oscillation rate of an alternating electric current or voltage or of a magnetic, electric or electromagnetic field or mechanical system in the frequency range from around to around . This is roughly between the ...
channel.


Types

There are now six kinds of maritime mobile service identities: * Ship station identities * Group ship station identities * Coast station identities * Group coast station identities * SAR aircraft * Navigational aids and craft associated with a parent ship


Maritime identification digits (MID)

An MID consists of three digits, always starting with a number from 2 to 7 (assigned regionally). A second MID can be assigned once the first or subsequently allocated MID is more than 80% exhausted, and the rate of assignments is such that 90% exhaustion is foreseen. A listing of MIDs assigned to each country can be found in Table 1 of
ITU The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...
Radio Regulations Appendix 43.


The first digit of an MMSI

The initial digits of an MMSI categorize the identity, as defined in by Recommendation M.585. The meaning of the first digit is: * 0 Ship group, coast station, or group of coast stations * 1 For use by
SAR SAR or Sar may refer to: Places * Sar (river), Galicia, Spain * Sar, Bahrain, a residential district * Sar, Iran (disambiguation), several places in Iran * Sar, Tibet, Tibet Autonomous Region of China * Šar Mountains, in southeastern Europe ...
aircraft (111MIDaxx)The seventh digit ("a") ''may'', but does not have to, designate where the aircraft is
fixed-wing A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct ...
(a = 1) or a
helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
(a = 5) if desired. The "a" digit can also simply be used like the other "x" digits if the distinction is not desired.
First specified in this revision; carried forward in newer versions of the M.585 recommendation. * 2-7 MMSI's used by individual ships, beginning with an MID: ** 2 Europe (e.g., Italy has MID 247; Denmark has MIDs 219 ''and'' 220) ** 3 North and Central America and Caribbean (e.g., Canada, 316; Greenland, 331; Panama, 351 through 357, plus 370 through 373; United States, 303(Alaska), 338(domestic), plus 366 through 369) ** 4 Asia (not the southeast) (e.g.,
PRC China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, 412, 413, and 414; Maldives, 455; Japan, 431) ** 5
Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...
(Australia, 503; New Zealand, 512), and
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
(Philippines, 548; Indonesia, 525) ** 6 Africa ( Eritrea, 625) ** 7 South America (Peru, 760) * 8 Handheld VHF transceiver with DSC and
GNSS A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high pr ...
* 9 Devices using a free-form number identity: ** Search and Rescue Transponders (970yyzzzz)Where "yy" is a numeric ID assigned to a manufacturer, and "zzzz" is a sequence number chosen by that manufacturer.Manufacturer IDs / codes are assigned by ''Comité International Radio-Maritime'' (CIRM), the International Association for Marine Electronics Companies, as delegated by the ITU. **
Man overboard "Man overboard!" is an exclamation given aboard a vessel to indicate that a member of the crew or a passenger has fallen off of the ship into the water and is in need of immediate rescue. Whoever sees the person's fall is to shout, "Man overboa ...
DSC and/or AIS devices (972yyzzzz) ** 406 MHz
EPIRB An Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) is a type of emergency locator beacon for commercial and recreational boats, a portable, battery-powered radio transmitter used in emergencies to locate boaters in distress and in need of ...
s fitted with an AIS transmitter (974yyzzzz) ** craft associated with a parent ship (98MIDxxxx)The devices that use these MMSIs may be located in lifeboats, life-rafts, rescue-boats, etc. **
navigational aids Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...
(AtoNs; 99MIDaxxx)The "a" digit ''may'' be used to designate the type of AtoN: 1 for physical, 6 for virtual. The "a" digit can also simply be used like the other "x" digits if the distinction is not desired. ;Notes


Station Identity Formats


Ship station identities

The 9-digit code constituting a ship station identity is formed as follows: :MIDxxxxxx where MID represent the Maritime Identification Digits and X is any figure from 0 to 9. If the ship is fitted with an Inmarsat B, C or M ship earth station, or it is expected to be so equipped in the foreseeable future, then the identity should have three trailing zeros: :MIDxxx000 If the ship is fitted with an Inmarsat C ship earth station, or it is expected to be so equipped in the foreseeable future, then the identity could have one trailing zero: :MIDxxxxx0 If the ship is fitted with an Inmarsat A ship earth station, or has satellite equipment other than Inmarsat, then the identity needs no trailing zero.


Group ship station call identities

Group ship station call identities for calling simultaneously more than one ship are formed as follows: :0MIDxxxxx where the first figure is zero, and X is any figure from 0 to 9. The particular MID represents only the country assigning the group ship station call identity and so does not prevent group calls to fleets containing more than one ship nationality.


Coast station identities

Coast station identities are formed as follows: :00MIDxxxx where the first two figures are zeros, and X is any figure from 0 to 9. The MID reflects the country in which the coast station or coast earth station is located.


Group coast station call identities

Group coast station call identities for calling simultaneously more than one coast station have the same format as individual coast station IDs: two leading zeros, the MID, and the four digits. They are formed as a subset of coast station identities, as follows: :00MID0000 for any coast station using the MID :009990000 for any VHF coast station (regardless of MID) US Coast Guard stations use a non-standard MMSI: 003669999 - any US Coast Guard Base station Note that administrations in other countries may use different formats. Reference: ITU-R Recommendations M.585-7


Search and Rescue Transmitter

AIS Search and Rescue Transmitters ( AIS-SART) have an identifier related to the manufacturer, rather than a country's MID: :970YYxxxx The digitals represented by the two Y characters are assigned by the International Association for Marine Electronics Companies and refer to the SART manufacturer, while the Xs are sequential digits assigned by the manufacturer identifying the SART.


Federal US MMSIs

In the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
(one of whose MIDs is 366), federal MMSIs are assigned by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and are normally (but not always) formed as 3669xxxxx. Non-federal MMSIs are assigned by the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
normally as part of the ship station license application, and are formed as 366xxx000 for ships on international voyages and ships needing an Inmarsat mobile earth station, or 366xxxxx0 for all other ships. The
United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mu ...
group ship station call identity is 036699999, and group coast station call identity is 003669999. In the U.S., MMSIs are primarily used for digital selective calling and for assigning Inmarsat identities.


Exhaustion of MMSIs

Because all ships on international voyages, as well as all ships fitted with an Inmarsat B or M ship earth station, are assigned MMSIs of the format MIDxxx000, a serious problem has arisen internationally in assigning sufficient numbers of MIDs to all administrations that need them. For example, a country having 10,000 Inmarsat-equipped ships would require 10 MIDs just to accommodate those 10,000 ships. If 50,000 boaters decided to fit small Inmarsat M terminals, 50 additional MIDs would be required to accommodate them. The problem exists with Inmarsat-equipped ships because ITU-T recommendations require that Inmarsat ship earth stations be assigned the identity (MESIN) TMIDxxxYY, where T indicates the type of Inmarsat station, YY indicates the Inmarsat station extension (e.g."00" might indicate a telephone in the bridge, "01" might indicate a fax machine in the radio room, etc.), and MIDxxx indicates the ship station number, which relates to the assigned ship station identity MIDxxx000. The MMSI was meant to be an all-inclusive ship electronic identity, used in one form or another by every GMDSS or telecommunications instrument on the ship. Questions have been raised, however, whether the MMSI can in practice totally fulfill that role. ITU may eventually end the practice of relating Inmarsat MESIN identities with the ship MMSI identity. To help mitigate against MMSI number exhaustion, manufacturers are required to cripple DSC-capable radios so that an MMSI number can only be entered once, which means that a device owner cannot move the radio from one boat to another. This is especially egregious for hand-held VHF devices, for which a single MMSI number makes little sense. The
World Radio Conference In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
, Geneva, 1997 (WRC-97), adopted Resolution 344 concerning the exhaustion of the maritime mobile service identity resource. In view of improvements to public switched telephone networks, and new capabilities of the Inmarsat system other than Inmarsat B or M, previous restrictions should no longer be applicable. All nine digits of the MMSI can be used in such cases, and no longer need to end in trailing zeros.


See also

{{Wikidata property, P587 * Automatic Identification System uses MMSI codegroups for ship ID *
Global Maritime Distress Safety System The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) is a worldwide system for automated emergency signal communication for ships at sea developed by the United Nations' International Maritime Organization (IMO) as part of the SOLAS Convent ...
* Inmarsat and the International Mobile Satellite Organization (IMSO) * Maritime call sign, not tied to MMSI but can contain MMSI after * SOLAS Convention a global Maritime Safety Convention


References


External links


MARITIME MOBILE SERVICE IDENTITY (MMSI)
USCG The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mu ...
, which was adapted from Appendix 43 of the International Telecommunication Union Radio Regulations
Table of MIDs
from ITU Emergency communication Identifiers Maritime communication Telecommunication protocols