Picture: Tech Crunch/Royal Caribbean
Last month SpaceX announced its Starlink Maritime service, which is a satellite internet service on water. Royal Caribbean has announced that it will be adding the service to its whole fleet after the success of a pilot service on one of its ships.
The test deployment aboard the Freedom of the Seas “received tremendous positive feedback,” which comes as no surprise. Current satellite at sea options are not great: expensive and slow, having enjoyed a market with little competition or innovation for the last couple of decades.
Starlink will create some real competition for existing providers. Even though its coverage is limited to coastal waters for now, the speed is way better and will probably pay for itself with onboard “premium Wi-Fi” charges in the first month.
The service costs the company roughly $5,000 monthly and has at least a $10,000 upfront hardware fee for the special terminals you’ll need to use it.
Although the Starlink constellation doesn’t yet work mid-ocean (such as on container ships), the plan is to provide that capability in the northern hemisphere by the end of the year and the southern hemisphere in early 2023.
Central and South America, all of Indonesia and Malaysia, and the southern half of Africa aren’t on the coverage map, though, which feels like a missed opportunity.
The dishes will be added to all vessels in the Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises fleets. There are no specific set dates yet, but the company says they should have the service on all ships by the end of Q1 2023.
