Internet Reception. Will Viking follow Royal Caribbean and Silver Seas and deploy Starlink on ships? Thoughts?

[Liz Masterson]

https://www.satellitetoday.com/broadband/2022/08/30/royal-caribbean-signs-deal-to-deploy-spacex-starlink-internet-service/

Edited August 31, 2022 by Liz Masterson

[CDNPolar]

I would suggest that you contact Viking to ask them.  Unless someone here has already done that no one would know....

[Cienfuegos]

Here's a current map of SpaceLink coverage.  It lines up nicely with areas of cruising interest like the Mediterranean, Caribbean, South American coasts, as well as some trans-ocean trips. Looks like about 10% of their birds are off line.

 

https://satellitemap.space/

[Heidi13]

Our son has ordered it for his boat and will install it when home on leave. It does provide unlimited data, but it is expensive both for the capital cost and monthly fee.

 

Time will tell how well it works once they have a large user base and if they can maintain the stated unlimited bandwidth???

[longterm]

It would be nice if Viking were to implement a better system; on our Caribbean cruise last December, we had really decent wifi, but in March in the Mediterranean it was pretty awful--so much so that I used my iPhone for a hotspot whenever we were docked. We almost never had TV either, but no big loss there since we like detoxing from TV while we're cruising.

[CurlerRob]

10 hours ago, Cienfuegos said:

Here's a current map of SpaceLink coverage.  It lines up nicely with areas of cruising interest like the Mediterranean, Caribbean, South American coasts, as well as some trans-ocean trips. Looks like about 10% of their birds are off line.

 

https://satellitemap.space/

Thank you for the link - I had not run across it.

 

The coverage for Norway / Greenland / Iceland looks quite sparse at this time - ironic for Viking ... 🍺🥌

[CurlerRob]

4 hours ago, longterm said:

It would be nice if Viking were to implement a better system; on our Caribbean cruise last December, we had really decent wifi, but in March in the Mediterranean it was pretty awful--so much so that I used my iPhone for a hotspot whenever we were docked. We almost never had TV either, but no big loss there since we like detoxing from TV while we're cruising.

If there's one thing that seems to unite cruisers, it's their love/hate relationship with shipboard internet! I've yet to find a single cruise line that gets consistent high marks for their service. On our 2019 Wake of the Vikings trip, I was favorably surprised with the quality of the service, even in the higher latitudes.

 

Then, utterly chagrined when it totally pooched once in the St. Lawrence River - I blamed Canada! 🍺🥌

[UWDawg]

2 hours ago, CurlerRob said:

it totally pooched once in the St. Lawrence River - I blamed Canada! 🍺🥌

Roger(s) that! 

[UWDawg]

13 hours ago, Cienfuegos said:

Here's a current map of SpaceLink coverage.  It lines up nicely with areas of cruising interest like the Mediterranean, Caribbean, South American coasts, as well as some trans-ocean trips. Looks like about 10% of their birds are off line.

 

https://satellitemap.space/

I'm thinking this maritime coverage map might be most appropriate for our objectives:

https://api.starlink.com/public-files/maritime-coverage-map.pdf

https://www.starlink.com/map?source=maritime

[UWDawg]

8 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

it is expensive both for the capital cost and monthly fee.

After returning from the 21/22 VWC earlier this year and reading a Starlink article, I was contemplating the possibility and practicality of brining a portable version on our next WC.

 

https://www.starlink.com/maritime 
"High-speed, low-latency internet with up to 350 Mbps download while at sea. $5,000/mo with a one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals."

 

So I was figuring total cost for a 4 month world cruise would be $30k, or $15k each if split between two since it comes with two high performance terminals.  And even though maritime coverage is limited at this time, it might be much improved by the time we sail in 2024.  But since “Starlink requires an unobstructed view of the sky,” temporarily mounting the antenna on my stateroom’s veranda wouldn’t work, and I doubted I could convince the captain to let me mount an antenna on deck.  So… I was left hoping that Viking will opt in and if so, the service might be offered at a lesser price.  Of course, then I was left contemplating how much I would be willing to pay for such a service.  
 

[Cienfuegos]

16 hours ago, CurlerRob said:

Thank you for the link - I had not run across it.

 

The coverage for Norway / Greenland / Iceland looks quite sparse at this time - ironic for Viking ... 🍺🥌

 

Elon Musk mentioned a while back that a number of satellites had been vectored to service over Ukraine. Both the occupied and free sections.  And that ground terminals had been shipped to Ukraine.

 

It's possible that Scandinavia lost a few overheads in the process.  SpaceLink is launching regularly from Cape Canaveral. They send up 30-50 satellites at a time.

[Liz Masterson]

25 minutes ago, Cienfuegos said:

SpaceLink is launching regularly from Cape Canaveral. They send up 30-50 satellites at a time.

I know they are going as fast as they can and they have a generous budget.... 

[CurlerRob]

1 hour ago, Cienfuegos said:

It's possible that Scandinavia lost a few overheads in the process.  

 

Could be, but I noticed that the grid was still very symmetrical, just not covering those northern latitudes. Might simply be a small market that will get filled out later - they do go much farther south, but that appears to be to cover Oz and NZ. 🍺🥌

[les37b]

To be fair, I've found the Internet speed on Viking, far better than on SS. My next sailing isn't until March 23, so fingers crossed it's up and running for then and is the service we are hoping it'll be. I suspect it won't be for the free service, but an incentive to pay for a premium.