WB Group moves naval communications from land to sea. FONET-NAVY system reaches more warships

From combat vehicle to warship

FONET, the system's land based predecessor, has spent years running in tens of thousands of military vehicles worldwide as a crew intercom and radio integration hub. It is produced by WB Group in Poland, and also by licensed partners abroad, including in the United States. Few Polish defence firms can claim a production licence with NATO's largest member, which already sets FONET apart from other domestic communication systems.

FONET-NAVY, the naval variant, was not designed as a separate product built from scratch. WB Group deliberately pursued maximum unification with the land version, so a fleet operator can run both systems within a single training and maintenance ecosystem instead of keeping two separate equipment lines. This approach, common in the aerospace industry, where manufacturers have long built product families around a shared platform, remains rare in the naval systems market. Most competitors design maritime communications from the ground up rather than adapting proven land based solutions.

Three components, one network

The system's architecture is deliberately simple, consisting of a central unit, a broadcast amplifier and operator consoles. The central unit supports up to 30 workstations at once, and on larger vessels several central units can be cascaded to serve more users. The broadcast amplifier, a two channel device, boosts the internal and external announcement network, carrying messages and alarms through speakers in cabins, corridors and on open deck. The operator console, fitted with a speaker and microphone, is the crew's access point to the network.

This simplicity has a practical rationale. Fewer equipment types mean easier crew training and simpler maintenance when access to manufacturer support is limited, such as during extended missions at sea.

Built for the maritime environment

Moving the system from land to water required more than redesigning the housings. Power supply was adapted to shipboard installations, and the units were hardened against humidity, vibration and salt air. Installation matters too: the system can be connected without replacing existing cabling, making use of wiring already run on vessels in service. For fleets that cannot afford newbuild ships but need to modernise communications on vessels that have served for decades, that may be the deciding factor.

Part of a wider ecosystem

FONET-NAVY does not operate in isolation. WB Group designs it as part of a broader communications architecture that includes the TOPAZ battle management platform, the PERAD personal software defined radio, the COMP@N tactical vehicle radio and the compact U-GATE personal command and observation system. The goal is a single, coherent data exchange network aboard the ship, combining voice communication with tactical data transmission, with the option to connect to shore based IT infrastructure at the home port. It is the same closed ecosystem logic WB Group has long applied to its land systems, now carried over to sea.

A test still ahead

Repeat orders for FONET-NAVY confirm that Polish communication solutions are finding buyers, even if the company will not say whether the contracts are domestic or export. For WB Group, that is still a useful argument in talks with Polish naval operators and security vessel operators, for whom the system's modularity and its ability to fit vessels of different sizes, new and in service alike, lower the barrier to modernising onboard communications. As national fleet construction and modernisation programmes move forward, from frigates to patrol vessels, proven, combat tested solutions like this one will determine whether Polish defence industry genuinely displaces Western imports or remains a supplement to them.

The real opportunity still lies ahead. The Miecznik programme, building new frigates for the Polish Navy, and the Orka programme, covering future submarines, are the natural venues where Polish naval communications could show what they are capable of. WB Group built FONET-NAVY to be easy to scale and upgrade over the coming decades, and the track record it has built up through existing deliveries, together with the reputation FONET has already earned on land across dozens of the world's armed forces, gives reasonable grounds to think Polish industry holds a genuine bargaining chip against foreign integrators. If that scenario plays out, FONET-NAVY could become one of those quiet successes in Polish defence manufacturing that rarely make headlines, yet