Guest editorial: Maritime communications in 5G and beyond networks

With the rapid development of marine activities, there has been an increasing use of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices for maritime applications. This leads to a growing demand for high-speed and ultra-reliable maritime communications. Current maritime communication networks (MCNs) mainly rely on satellites and on-shore base stations (BSs). The former generally provides limited transmission rate while the latter lacks wide-area coverage capability. As a result, the development of current MCN lags far behind the terrestrial fifth-generation (5G) network.