It’s not just Tom Cruise who feels the need for speed. For guests and crew alike, fast, ubiquitous internet access at sea is now seen as a must-have provision. Everyone wants to surf on the surf.
“Connectivity is no longer regarded as a luxury,” says Nick Maynard, marketing director for communications company One Web. “It’s now right up there with reasons why a superyacht might not go to sea, such is the expectation from principals.”
This rise in demand goes way beyond Netflix and TikTok users on board. From audiovisual systems to artificial intelligence, fast, reliable data connections have become de rigueur and in demand - and there’s a revolution afoot.
The transformative technology everyone’s talking about is Elon Musk’s Starlink Maritime. A SpaceX offshoot, Starlink currently comprises a constellation of 3,300 low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites circling the planet at an altitude of 550 kilometres, give or take. In time, this is expected to increase to 12,000 satellites. It’s a radically different approach to the traditional VSAT system yacht owners will be familiar with: geostationary (GEO) networks that rely on satellites parked at some 36,000 kilometres and MEO (medium-earth orbit) satellites hovering around 20,000 kilometres.
The system is exciting to those in the connectivity business because LEO satellites can outperform GEO and MEO satellites by offering faster internet speeds. They’re also far cheaper to make and deploy, mainly due to their size. GEO satellites are physically bigger (around the size of a large van) and can only be launched one at a time, whereas Starlink’s LEO satellites weigh just
