Speculations about a possible Garmin AIS entry:

This weekend is being a bit more windy, rainy and cold that I like, so
instead of go sailing, I stayed driving between home and the marina,
which lead me to think a little more about AIS.

Thus, I would like to post here, as a discussion theme, some thoughts
I had about this topic, and I will thanks any additions and comments,
specially from Meindert, Dave Baker and Glen Wilson.

A) Regarding a possible Garmin first entry in the AIS business, what
could be the most obvious alternatives? (if possible, vote a % of
probability for each alternative, which are not mutually exclusive)

1) Two new proprietary Garmin Network Sensors: one AIS Receiver and one
AIS Transponder for the 30xx family of MFD's ?
2) Two new proprietary Garmin integrated (standalone) Gps/Plotter/AIS,
one having a AIS receiver only and another having a AIS transponder?
3) Two new AIS black box, using standard NMEA specifications, one being
receiver only and the other a full transponder, target to be selled on
the general market?
4) As above, but using a third part OEM made, and which would be
marketed with the Garmin logo?
5) Garmin will enter the market of marine radios, competing with ICOM
and others, and will launch a new line of VHF/DSC/AIS radio models,
which will interface with all the current Garmin gps/plotters.

B) Considering that, with exception of A2 hypothesis, the alternatives
above probably implies that the line of the high end marine plotters
(Garmin Network MFD's 3010, 3006 and 3005) would be the first to
have the software upgraded to support AIS, what could be the AIS
alternatives to rest of the Garmin line of portables, multi ways,
marine gps/plotters, like the GpsMap 276C/296C?

1) These units will be probably discontinued and/or will not have any
AIS support.
2) These are good sellers, and so, Garmin will made an effort to
introduce a limited entry to AIS in these portable units

C) If the second alternative is selected, how AIS will be implemented
on these portable gps/plotters?

1) Allowing the option A3 and A4 (new NMEA based) AIS receivers only
to be supported by the firmware , probably making use of the second
serial port (COM2) as NMEA 183-HS at 38,400 bps?
2) Allowing the new proprietary Garmin Sensors AIS receivers (option
A1) to communicate with the gps/plotters using the USB port and a
proprietary direct binary GARMIN/GARMIN type protocol, ignoring the
NMEA standard.

Thanks all and best regards

Pascal