Emails can be sent and received on a cruise, but an internet connection is required. At sea, the only way to connect to the internet is through the ship’s WiFi. When docked, local free WiFi, hot spots, or cell phone mobile data plans may be used for sending and receiving emails.
Sailors can send and receive text messages with family, friends, and work colleagues via email addresses. In Australia and Canada, viewers can watch almost every session of every Olympics 2024 event for free on 9Now and CBC, including sailing free live streams. There are still two ways to get email and weather information when offshore: through a satellite or single side band (SSB) radio with a modem.
Sailing live at Paris 2024 can be watched via media rights holders (MRHs), such as Nine in Australia and Globo in Brazil. Sailors can have access to email, but they cannot use sailmail for commercial mail due to its terms and conditions. Emails are censored and monitored for the safety and well-being of sailors.
When going on an extended cruise and renting out your house, consider using a screener like Bill to forward mail to marinas. The best system is sailmail, which requires an SCS modem, station license (call sign), and a SSB radio. It has good world-wide coverage and costs $250.
In the 21st century, there are still two main ways to get email and weather information when offshore: through a satellite or single side band radio with a modem.
📹 How We Get our Mail While Sailing Around the World | Step 335
” How do we get our mail and packages delivered while sailing full time around the world? ” That’s a question we receive quite …
Do sailors get mail?
Yes, mail is routinely delivered to and from USN ships at sea. In fact, the Navy knows how important mail is to morale and will go through some surprising lengths to make sure it gets delivered as quickly and as often as practicable.
How to get mail while cruising?
Mail Forwarding You can get a local private mail box at a UPS store. This keeps you with a local address for voting and tax purposes. Get them to forward mail when you request it to General Delivery at a post office you will be visiting. This worked well for us as we did a full year on the boat doing the Great Loop.
Do sailors get a day off?
Enlisted Sailors and Officers are hardworking and dedicated individuals, but that doesn’t mean it’s all work and no play. America’s Navy offers several travel and recreational opportunities, as well as generous vacation time. In the Navy, you’ll have the chance to travel, even when not embarked on a ship.
With 30 paid vacation days each year, you can use this time to relax, visit your family or venture to new places. Downtime here isn’t much different than in the civilian sector.
RECREATIONAL SPORTS & FITNESS. The Navy offers on-base sports at all skill levels for men’s, women’s and co-ed competitions. Many tournaments and leagues are offered on a year-round basis for anything from softball to flag football, basketball to volleyball, soccer to tennis, racquetball to running, and much more.
The Navy stresses the importance of fitness every day to its members. No matter where you serve, you will find some of the best fitness and workout centers in the world. These facilities and programs promote personal, physical and mental excellence, as well as meet leisure needs and help develop positive lifestyle habits. You may also participate in strength and weight training, cardiovascular conditioning, aerobic and martial arts classes, spinning and yoga.
How do I send mail to someone in the Navy?
Stateside mail must contain a unit designation, office symbol, street address to include room or suite #, city, state and ZIP + four code. Mail destined for overseas will include a unit designation, office symbol, UNIT #, box # (if assigned), and a correct APO/FPO number and ZIP + four code.
- Always select the best and most logical type of mailing container.
- Fold four or fewer pages to fit into smaller envelopes. Sending lightweight items in oversized envelopes or flats requires a surcharge in addition to the normal postage fee.
- Use an envelope that is only slightly larger than the material being mailed.
- Do not use wrapping paper for unclassified mail (boxes) unless the box is heavily marked. Experience shows such wrappers are often torn in handling and the address/return address of the parcel is lost. If wrapping paper is absolutely necessary, always put your return and delivery address on the box itself before wrapping.
- Marking requirements for the outside of parcels include a mandatory provision that containers marked “DO NOT BEND”MUST HAVE STIFFENERSto protect the contents. Also, extraneous information such as order numbers, which can be confused with ZIP codes, are not permitted adjacent to or immediately under the last line of the address. The optical reader scans addresses from the bottom up. Therefore, the zip code area must be clear of all other markings so as not to confuse the machine.
- Pressure sensitive, filament-reinforcement tape will be used for closing and reinforcing containers. Masking tape and cellophane tape can never be used in closing or reinforcing packages but may be used to augment adhesive closures on envelopes or to cover staples on bags.
- Mailing tubes are discouraged. Their use is to be limited to those instances when no other mailing container will satisfy a particular mailing requirement. As a precautionary measure, do not use labels on tubes. Write addresses on the tube itself in case labels peel off.
- All mail must be endorsed with the class of mail desired except letter size envelopes. Mail weighing 11 oz. or more must be endorsed as Priority Mail. The OPR must indicate the class of service required in the top right corner of the container.
**NOTE** Mail intended for pouch service will be endorsed as “POUCH” regardless of weight or container.
- Consolidate accountable items without return receipts when sent to the same destination, thereby saving registration and certification fees.
- Official mail is authorized only for material relating exclusively to the business of the government.
- Use the correct FPO/APO element for overseas mail
How do you get mail if you live on a boat?
You’ve got mail! 5 ways for boaters to receive snail mail.1 Moorings. The easiest option is if you have a permanent mooring that can accept mail. … 2 Friends. You could ask a trusted friend or relative to receive your post for you. … 3 Mail Forwarding. … 4 Mail Boxes. … 5 Work Address.
You’ve got mail! 5 ways for boaters to receive snail mail.
Whether you’re thinking of living on a boat, or are looking for a boat for sale for an extended period of cruising you may be wondering how boaters collect their snail mail? Depending on your situation there are a number of options you can choose to collect your mail when you’re on a long cruise.
The easiest option is if you have a permanent mooring that can accept mail. Some permanent moorings, whether they are outside a pub, a stretch of secured towpath or a marina with full facilities may have an address with postcode and could be willing to accept mail for boaters. My first mooring was rented from a pub and the landlady was happy accept my mail which I collected from the bar at my convenience!
How do you communicate with friends on a cruise ship?
Here are our top five:Give them a call. If you know where the other person is, shipboard and stateroom phones offer the simplest way to reach out and let them know you’re running late. … Walkie-Talkies. … Cabin Notes. … The Chosen Meeting Place. … Agree your plans.
Planning a cruise with your family or a group of friends? Chances are not everyone will want to spend their time doing the same thing – especially with so many activities on offer.
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to get everyone in the same place in time for dinner. This might sound easy enough, but what happens if someone’s plans change? How do you get in touch?
Back on land, the solution is easy – you simply pick up your mobile phone and call or text the other person. But on a large cruise ship, you’ll quickly pay the price of costly mobile connections.
Can you email someone on a cruise ship?
Buy a WiFi Plan. One way to send an email at sea is to buy a WiFi package from the cruise line.
If you’re taking a cruise the cruise line will usually advertise their internet services to you multiple times and there will be a desk or venue you can visit onboard for more information.
WiFi packages can usually be used on your own phone, tablet or laptop.
The cost is often “per device” so if two of you are sharing a cabin, you need to buy two Wi-Fi packages.
Can you get mail delivered to a cruise ship?
It is quite common to address mail to someone ‘aboard name vessel’ with the address as the location the ship docks, if known. It might be easier to address the mail to an office of the cruise company if they have one in one of their stops.
With ubiquitous electronic communication, it is not really common anymore to send letters or post cards to ship crew, but parcels are still adressable and probably still not too uncommon for birthdays or other holidays if you have a loved one working on a ship. If parcels arrive, I would very much assume that it is still possible to use the same way for letters.
The common procedure, but shipping companies may for sure have different policies on how to handle mail adressed to their crew, is to send the parcel (or letter) to an upcoming port and use an address similar to:
Ship nameAttention of: crew member namePort’s full address.
Can you text someone while they are on a cruise?
Due to regulations, the WMSatSea network only works when the ship is at sea at least 12 nautical miles from shore (2 nautical miles in the European Union). When the ship is sailing on international waters, you will be able to use the WMS network for incoming and outgoing calls, SMS, and Data services (email and web surfing). Once in port, you can connect to local roaming networks as permitted by your home carrier.
The WMSatSea mobile network is accessible by most mobile phones, supporting both GSM and CDMA technologies. You must have service with one of the nearly 400 carriers worldwide that have a roaming agreement with WMS. Some prepaid phone plans by some carriers are not currently supported. Please check with your mobile telephone service provider for details.
Rates for roaming on ships are determined by your home carrier. Please note that calls to 800, 888, 866, and 877 numbers are not toll free. You will be billed by your home carrier for your international roaming usage on your regular mobile phone bill. Typically charges will appear on the next monthly bill, but depending on your carrier it may occasionally take up to 60 days for charges to appear on your phone bill. Please note that most cell phone carriers do not allow their unlimited rate plans to apply to cellular calls, texts or data used while onboard ships. Please contact your own carrier to confirm this and your specific pricing details.
How to get mail when living on a boat?
Getting Mail on a Stationary Boat. Most people use a marina office to receive mail. Some other boaters use their home address, if they have an actual “address” associated with their boat. Since we sail to different places frequently and aren’t always docked at one specific marina, we prefer to use our P.O. box located in Florida.
Traveling Often? Get Mail with a P.O.Box. By using our P.O. box, we have the freedom to travel without having to worry about where our mail is being sent daily. While we are away on our adventures, our mail and packages get shipped to our P.O. box. They are held there for only $15/month until we are able to retrieve it all. The man that owns the Mailroom Plus we use is amazing! If we have packages waiting and need them delivered to us somewhere along the way he consolidates them for us and ships the items wherever we need.
Using USPS General Delivery. USPS General Delivery can be another great option to receive mail while living on a boat. General Delivery is a mail service for those without a permanent address, often used as a temporary mailing address.We have used USPS General Delivery in Puerto Rico and the USVI’s. First, you must find a USPS location that participates in General Delivery. You then address your package as follows:
Can you post a letter to a cruise ship?
If someone wishes to send you a letter or parcel it should be clearly marked with your name, rank and employment number, plus the name of the ship you are on and then can be sent to: Carnival UK, Carnival House, 100 Harbour Parade, Southampton, SO15 1ST, England.
📹 We VIOLATED Starlink – New Email Ultimatum – Ep 227 – Lady K Sailing
Starlink #starlinkmobile #starlinkemail #sailboatinternet #sailboatlife Lady K Discord: https://discord.gg/EHzy8YjmWc Need a …
I use to be a Sat /Comms/Network engineer. Worked for two major Cruise Lines. As per your possible inquiry on 8:45 – No, it does NOT cost Starlink any more if you are on land or ocean. Starlink satellites do not work the same as the old satellite style does. The old style was that a customer linked/pointed to a satellite that was in high orbit (geosynchronous orbit) Which just means it’s stationary above one area like satellite DISH TV and therefore cover MANY customers with one Sat. With Starlink satellites the customer links to one satellite that orbits in a non-geostationary orbit and your dish finds the next following starlink satellite and connects to it before losing the previous link as it moves out of your line-of-sight hence the need for many starlink satellites (hence the starlink net). Since these Starlink satellites are circling the Earth and passing over land AND WATER the “Many customers to one satellite” (old way) does NOT apply and therefore does NOT cost any more. — What does cost is the production of so many satellites and rocket ship launches to put them up in space and so to get as much money for funding as quickly as possible they charge more money to those customers that are “different” using that “different” excuse to charge more. Those satellites are NOT doing anything different to ocean connections as they are to land connections. — Great article, thank you.
I wish Starlink was listening. Having an internet connection while traveling on the open sea is a huge safety gain. Using the service to watch articles is not on my menu. But getting accurate and timely weather data, connecting with shore-based support (engine trouble, for example), and keeping loved ones assured with our progress reporting are all extremely valuable. I wish they would offer a lower-speed version so that email, text messaging and basic phone service stayed up.
I just looked at the Maritime plan and it actually looks like the maritime plan went from $1000 to $250 per month. Last time I checked was like 2 weeks ago. Of course there is a higher equipment cost, but it seems to be $2500 equipment cost for maritime and mobility, and business at $250 a month for service. And $599 equipment cost for roam at $150 a month for service.
50gigs will stream more than 100 hours of YouTube at 480p, honestly do we all really need to watch 3-4 hours of YouTube everyday? I guess on an ocean passage that might be nice, but I’m going to blow your mind right now; Every movie ever made in existence is on the internet and available to download right this second.
I liked your article and learned a few things about billing options. I just have the static land version at the moment. I did want to comment on how Starlink works in relation to your comment about out in the ocean. It doesn’t really cost them more, but it is a limited resource (at the moment). Two things are going on: There are pretty much the same number of satellites over any given latitude at any one time. IOW, there are just as many serving over the mid Atlantic at 40.7 degrees latitude as there are over New York city. Since there are no users out there (relatively speaking) the satellites have really nothing to do. Having anybody hitting one would be just free money to them. BUT…over land, when you browse to some site, it goes to the satellite and then directly back down to a ground station then to the site. At mid-Atlantic, that satellite that is serving the boat, can’t see the ground station. It must relay to one or more other satellites to finally reach the ground station. So… you are using more resources for your connection out in mid ocean. The problem is… the first generation of satellites did NOT have this relay capability. It is my understanding that the first ones that did are the ones launched on a polar orbit out of Vandenberg in California… and there are very few of those satellites comparatively, but enough to handle the current high-end ocean customers (and the military). As time goes on, all the satellites are supposed to have that capability and hopefully there will be no reason for high costs, except to gouge what the market will bare.
We received a email 4 months ago from Starlink (ground based) saying our service will be cut back because we use to much data (2 seniors with IPads on most of the time and internet TV so we were sometimes using 1T an month so we cut back on our usage to prevent our service from being downgraded. Yesterday we received a email saying that our service will not be downgraded and we can use as much data as we want anytime peak or off peak times as well our monthly cost will be going down and if we want we can buy a additional dish for 20% ($1000) of what we paid for our present dish. It’s all a bit confusing just like Twitter 🤪
Starlink has just deployed a set of “high Earth orbit” (instead of the common low Earth orbit) satellites. They are further away with a bit of time lag. There are only a few of them and they were deployed for airlines, ocean-going freighters and cruise ships. They are huge, compared to the earlier version.
I just got my Starlink with a Roam/Mobile Regional service for my boat on Lake Ontario. This works for what I am doing since not on the Ocean. The option for the mobile priority that allows for use in motion and on the water is like double to cost and only 50GB. The Canadian price I see is $320. As Tim says this will all change. So stay awake!
You’re right that infrastructure for boats costs more, but for the wrong reasons. Starlink satellites are not in geosynchronous orbit. So they MUST have enough satellites to cover the ocean, just to get good coverage on land. ie: each satellite goes all the way around the Earth, so you need to fill that ring with enough satellites that your target service area is always covered. However, Starlink satellites can communicate with three things: your dishy, a ground-based access point, and each other. To service the land, the dishy sends to the satellite which sends to the ground-based access point. On the ocean, there is no ground-based access point, so instead, your dishy talks to the satellite which talks to a satellite which talks to a satellite which eventually reaches a ground-based access point. So to service requests on the ocean takes significantly more power and bandwidth than over land.
Regarding cost over sea vs over land – Starlink is very different from satellite internet before. The satellites are not geosynchronous!! That means they are not stationary over an area; instead they use a vast network/constellation of little and relatively inexpensive satellites all zipping around and communicating with each other. This means that the coverage at sea is mostly just “accidental”. Of course they are happy to proved service (and collect revenue) by supplying internet to boats at sea. But those satellites would be there regardless even if they only wanted to provide internet to land. So no, it is not more expensive for them to provide internet to boats. They just know that people with boats are more likely to accept a higher price tag. I’ve been waiting to see what happens with starlink to see if I get it. Thanks for testing the waters for the rest of us!
Sending good vibes your way, I have some heavy personal stuff going on as well and taking some time out for yourself is necessary & good. I had heard about the Starlink Kerfuffle..good article 🙂 ..I remember the early days of cell phones “oh, you want to have a dial tone? That will be extra…text messages???? whooooowheeeeeeee, sign this loan application”
Terms of Service? A friend had an IMTS mobile phone active in his car when a large piston airliner crashed on takeoff. He parked his car in the middle of the mess, opened the doors, and let every emergency, doctor, fireman, and aviation person call unlimited and unhampered. The result was a mobile phone bill that needed a handtruck. The phone company realized that almost all these calls were dire unselfish emergencies, and they plucked out the monthly fee, circled the rest with a red pen, and made them disappear. Sailboats are among the most likely Starlink users to find themselves in the rescue role. They are the most likely customers to find a collision, fire, piracy, storm wreck, or plane downing of any vessel. …About sea bandwidth. Sea bandwidth utilizes almost completely unburdened horizontal relay Starlinks. The relay eventually reaches shore based Starlink ground connections. If every Pitcairn, Galapagos, Midway, sailboat, junk, and swordfish sailor surfed Starlink, heavily, they would hardly put a scratch in the service, and they would be dipping into the cheapest bandwidth of all. Starlink was supposed to become friendlier and cheaper. They have lost their way.
I think the land-based Roam plan is all non-priority. The new plan gets you the certain amount of priority internet. When that runs out it goes ack to the same speed you get from Roam. I would think unless you are moored near a city, you won’t notice much of a speed drop because traffic will be low. I don’t have it so I could be wrong. But I am looking to pick it up soon and will get the $250/mo plan. We still work from the boat and it is worth the cost to us at this time.
When you switch plans you have to wait out the rest of your billing cycle to switch back in most cases. That’s what I’ve heard…so you can’t just switch willy nilly whenever you want without a penalty period…I think there might be an internal tier system to that governs how quickly you can switch.
I know the $250 a month for only 220MBps seems expensive to folks who have gotten used to sub $100 per month Gigabit terrestrial broadband in urban areas. But sailors at sea have been paying around $100 per month for Iridium Go service that has a 2.4 kbps (no that’s not a typo) data rate that reminds me of my childhood CompuServe dial up. I think sooner rather than later, Starlink will treat RV’s and Sailboats the same and allow the RV service to be used within a couple miles of the coast as long as they are “stationary”, meaning anchored or in a marina. The easiest way to do it would just be to geofence the unit when you power it on with a rule that says something like, “the service works only within 250 meters of the powerup location”. Just my opinion. I could be wrong.
I Heard Starlink’s Satellites Cover the Planet, It’s Just Some Aren’t Active. You May Be 100 Miles from Cook Islands, and There Are Sats Up There, but Not Active Because No Customers. If You’re in Shipping Lanes, You May Get Better Prices, Internet Speeds. Yadda, Yadda…Now, I’m Just Rambling. Great article!!
Launching a single satellite into space can cost anywhere between $10 million and $400 million, depending on the vehicle used. A small launch vehicle such as the Pegasus XL rocket can lift 976 pounds (443 kilograms) into low-Earth orbit for about $13.5 million. That works out to be almost $14,000 per pound.
On the satellite coverage of starlink … no. Starlink is contellations of leo sattelites that basically fly across the sky in formation. The dish is actually a phased array antenna that can track and steer the beam to multiple sattelites near simultaineously … as one sat begins to pass out of view the next sat in view becomes active. In a maritime environment the signal has to be crosslinked from satellite to satellite until it gets a sat in view of a NOC … could be 2 hops, could be 10. There are near impercetable breaks in the data stream, vpn services don’t like it and often drop. All of these extra crosslinks do have a monetary value for starlink. Most boaters are using either the RV or Business antenna, which arent really designed for marine use, the roll, pitch and yaw of a boat will excessively wear the tiny stepping motors. With US DoD and many commercial shipping companies contracting Starlink services i suspect they are going to be a bit more draconian in enforcing the terms of service so they can more accurately determine what bandwidth they can guarantee to those contracts. As it is, many boaters are intentionally and willfully breaking the terms of service which they agreed to and are now angry Starlink has finally had enough … Havent seen the approvals for amazons service … Also … no I dont work for Elon … but I am a communications manager for a very large shipping company.
Starlink sats are in low earth orbit (LEO) which means they orbit faster than the earth rotates in order to stay up in orbit (generally about 30,000 km/h) – as opposed to geosynchronous orbit (such as most television and communications satellites) which orbit at the same speed that earth rotates (roughly 18,500 km/h). What this means is that they need more satellites, moving at faster speeds in order to make sure that you always have satellite coverage. Also, the lower down a satellite is, the smaller its coverage area, again necessitating more satellites. Priority for the early satellites was for the orbits that would cover high population densities, however now as they complete the network, the lower densities are also being filled in – remember this is Starlink’s main competitive advantage that they cover areas that are not well served by high speed Internet (let alone affordable broadband). All of this is to say that your analysis at 8:55 is a little bit off – there is actually no additional incremental cost to Starlink for the offshore coverage since the satellites must move through those areas of spares population regardless as they orbit in LEO. What is different is that Starlink has competition from those lower cost options that you mentioned via cellular networks for land-based customers. Furthermore, Starlink could make agreements with those cell providers and make use of a hybrid cellular/satellite configuration in order to achieve max speeds while reducing traffic on the space segment of the network.
One of the problems not mentioned here is ground stations. Satellites require ground stations to function. Until there is a heavy saturation of inter-satellite links (laser), data must be transferred via (legacy) radios from sat to sat until there is a sat with a viable ground station link. Since there are no ground stations in the middle of the ocean, this makes it very hard to predict throughput/load/bandwidth/etc throughout the system, possibly degrading service for people that are using the service according to the agreed terms.
A few things… it doesn’t cost Starlink anything more to operate over water than it does to operate over land. The satellites are not stationary, so they all travel over water to create the constellation that they have now. When the satellites travel over water, they are simply not getting used as much as the ones that are over land. From a financial perspective, they would want more people using the ones over water more often since it allowed them to reduce their operations costs. As far as data goes, 50GB per month is more than enough for the average user. That would equate to roughly 60 hours of Netflix perusal or 2 hours per day. When we lived in the RV (family of 4), we used about 65GB per month and that was with me working a full-time job where I was online for 8 hours per day and our children attended online school classes.
That was really a great explanation. Thanks. Send it to all the macro econ teachers you know. It’s all in there: supply and demand, elasticity of demand, competition, fixed costs, variable costs, monopoly power, government regulations, and of course avarice. And much more. Oh, also the historical perspective, And maybe send it to the engineering. Heck, put the whole thing on the internet. Oh, yeh. It is. Never mind.
Are they specific about how far from the coast? If you are just out for a quick sail close to shore will it go towards the 50gb quota? Originally I think they said 7 miles off land when they first released which would exclude “international” waters. Do you know specifically? I assume if you are at an anchorage but not on land that would still be considered on land?
As a kid I watched startrek and and wished I had a communicator and when the motorola startac 3000 dropped in the 90s i said to my mate look this is literally the startrek communicator from 15 years ago and we just both sat there spinning out that what we watched as kids is now a reality, now i look at today and see the replicators as 3d printers from digital to physical in minutes, i cant wait to see where we will be in 50 years, BEAM ME UP SCOTTY!!!
Correction, it does not cost them any extra to service oceans because of the style of satellite being used. Geostationary satellite such as viasat do cost more to service the ocean because they have a cone of service that has to be directed at an area to supply service. SpaceX satellites are in LEO which means they have to cross the ocean anyway to service land based customers. They only charge more because they can charge more.
People outside of the USA often don’t realise that they have no legal protection against Starlink, whereas if they used a local service their own country laws would/may offer some protection. For example UK, Australia or New Zealand have fantastic consumer protection laws as well as misleading advertising protection laws, unlike the USA.
I use Starlink at my house, but I have the mobile package because it was available immediately, and residential was a two year waiting list. Odd, considering it’s the same equipment. Anyway, I just went into the app and looked at the mobile option for use on the ocean, and it says “In motion use supported with approved hardware.” Does that mean you have to buy the more expensive Dishy to use it at sea?
my first cell phone that i used was provided by my employer,it was the size of a car battery and cost about £1.00 a minute to use,that was about 40 years ago, now look at what you can get on an unlimited plan, Starlink has different charges world wide, i believe its $50.00 in the Phillipines,Its £70.00 here in the Uk and $150.00 in the US per month
When is go my first cell ph in New Zealand the calls cost $.70c/min a txt was $.70c and monthly plan was $70. The ph system cost $16000… you had to order it and wait for the call on the land line to come in and pick it up.. tot was a big deal in the telecom office and people would clap as the deal was done…. Saying that it made me hide money in the marine fishing industry… I could call thru with problems and order stores and fuel and trucks to unload fish for the export market. Things continue to get better all the time .
The reason why Starlink is doing that is that their satellite mesh is fed the data by ground stations. They cannot have any ground stations in the ocean, so getting the data there requires many more hops between satellites and loads the mesh significantly more than a typical ground usage. (The low earth orbit satellites are always orbiting at high speed, so there are no satellites above a certain location permanently.)
…. Wired describes the lifecycle of a platform….. “Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.” The comparison to mobile phone companies will only be valid once there is significant competition. For our use that means Satellite Data aimed at recreational boaters. Once that comes, it is just a commodity where price competition drives the purchasing decision. I’m just afraid that may be quite a few years out.
Land Starlink subscriber here. Musk’s MO is big promises but failure to follow through. I was an early beta adopter, and at first, my download speeds were 200Mbps. And then things gradually slowed down. I searched on the Internet, and found others subscribers had a similar experience. The reason was simple: Starlink was rapidly signing up new subscribers, but it failed to keep pace by launching more and more satellites. And there is really no excuse here: Musk owns the space company employed to send the satellites into space. So my speeds are all over the road now. Though I live in rural CO, I am fortunate that the state provided funds for fiber optic cable for my neighborhood. Before the end of this year, it will be good riddance to Starlink, and hello to fiber optic. The 200 Mbps fiber optic plan is only 60.00 per month — half what I am paying Starlink now.
Starlink lost a sale then. Next month I’m setting-off around Northern Europe and the Mediterranean. $100/month was expensive but possible. $250/month is just unthinkable, especially compared to normal mobile-phone rates. On top of that, it’s not even clear if you can only use Starlink within a single country, whereas in the space of a few months I’ll be visiting 8 or 9, and even two continents (Europe/Africa). ~80% of the time, and ~99% of days, I’ll be in mobile phone range; <$30/month.
Love the articles – I could be wrong, however my understanding is that because Starlinks satellite network is a gigantic mesh of eventually thousands of satellites – this means that their hexagon coverage is always global. So, in theory, unless Starlink factored in a “cool down” phase when their boxes are flying out of coverage of land, across giant stretches of the ocean – and this logistically affects them ( I doubt it) – then logically the cost of full ocean coverage ought to be fully free, or very very very cheap for starlink to provide. The network is going to be flying over the oceans anyways, and due to the lower altitude of the network compared to older satellites like dish, it means they will be working – with no clients to service. You would think that starlink would want to get whatever $$ they can get out of the coverage they are providing, but some idiot in Corp billing probably equates boat = rich people, so charge atleast double. This move definitely reeks of the early cell phone days, and might unfortunately increase since there really is not going to be a competitor with Starlink for a long while. The closest is OneWeb – the UK version of Starlink, but that is very limited as there are international agreements for who has coverage over what spot and what altitudes.
Being on the ocean requires use of the new V2 Starlink satellite which can communicate sat-2-sat via laser. There are not very many of these launched yet. So service is limited. Near shore the v1 says can directly communicate with ground. I doubt these expensive rates will last more than a few years.
250 a month for high speed internet on the ocean is a steal. The maritime option prior to this was like 5-10k month and the fact they knowingly let folks use residential on ocean was just a gift to the cruising community. 50G limit with 100 month for every 50G after that is reasonable. My recommendation: starlink while in ocean or on hook without cell and use your cell when you have coverage.
The satellite costs does not vary with coverage for LEO constelations, like Starlink, Iridium & O3B. The network must be global to provide local coverage. The only potential issue is that the first generation Starlink satellite have to up and down link vthrough a single satellite. So the ground station has to be able to communicate to the same satellite that you are. Ok for coastal but not oceanic. For Geostationary satellites, like Inmatsat and Viasat these are regional/local.
You can’t really say it costs more for starlink at sea because they cover more people over land and not at sea. The satellites are in orbit. They don’t have a choice of whether to cover the ocean or not. If they want to cover land, then the satellites will a few minutes later be over the ocean. What it does do, is it requires the satellites to relay signals from satellite to satellite to get to a ground station. Normally on land, you go through up to a satellite, then down to a ground station. At sea, they may have to relay you 1/4 of the way around the planet before the packets get to a ground station.
I singled-handed the Bahamas and Caribbean in the ’80s with: a VHF; depth sounder; radio direction finder, EPIRB, sextant and compass. Entertainment was short wave- BBC, Voice of America, Voice of Communism and CKLW. (The propaganda was amusing.) Needless to say, access to weather forecasts and to GPS would have been a major stress squasher. In 1982 dollars Starlink would have cost $82/mo. Of course now no problem shelling out $70 for cable access is nothing- it keeps my iMac, iPhone and iPad happy. Fair Winds sailors!
My guess is this may be due in part to international “landing rights” for satellite services. Basically as I recall, the space over a country is considered “sovereign” up to some altitude. So communicating from space to the ground crosses those vertical national boundaries. My wild speculation is nobody cared until those governments realized they could tax it, and therefore restricted it, until they negotiate a deal w provider. For example some countries consider certain satphones illegal. Usually because they are trying to force those under their own laws to use that governments licensed networks.
There is a specific package for ships and a lot of sailors are using the mobile base station indented for campers. I’m sure there is some opportunistic pricing going on here on the part of Starlink but this isn’t just that. TCP packets ping back and forth, when the packet fails or you fail to get a confirmation, the internet keeps sending it over and over again. So using the wrong service causes more packet problems and you are resending again and again and clogging up the entire network. The sailing package prices in the extra bandwidth you use, and the hardware adjusts faster to reduce the package loss. So again, they may be gouging you on the cruising plan but there is something real behind it all.
Re: your comment about customers per satellite. In fact the satellites are constantly moving and currently they are doing nothing over much of the earth and they will be over the ocean and available whether or not SpaceX gets customers in that area. The main difference is that there are no land stations so as soon as you get far enough from shore the satellites must relay the signal between them possibly over multiple hops and so the overall bandwidth available may be lower and because SpaceX can’t predict where you go you may be competing for bandwidth with land based customers etc. I don’t know what distance each individual satellite covers or how many downlink stations they typically have on land. They probably also pay different license’s for providing that bandwidth to you, although again I know nothing about spectrum lisencing in international waters.
The cost to Starlink on the ocean should be the same as on land: the satellites are moving, they are not fixed. However, at the moment, Starlink is dependent on fixed ground stations to interconnect the satellites, so perhaps that results in less coverage on the open oceanb — but that should not really apply in coastal waters or in the Caribbean. The newest generation satellites have laser interconnects, and so will be less ground station dependent. While I think Starling should charge a lot to commercial ships: cruise ships, freighters, super-yachts, I think they should be charging the usual $150/mo for the run-of-the-mill sailboat.
I wonder given Tim you are on a Lake… I did not get that email but I have not used my Starlink away from the doc yet.. as my boat is not in the water yet this season… so my question is… do they consider the “Great Lakes” at sea? the satellites that cover the land near the lakes are going to be the same ones that we use while on the lakes.. so.. 😀 just currious
It is surprising the caps at sea as they have fewer users to serve, and the satellites fly over the ocean anyway. If they charge too much they just lose users. I can understand the higher price, but the cap should be higher. It may be the cap will go away with the 2.0 satellites that can send traffic between satellites and make the back haul less of an issue.
The cell phone analogy is spot on. We are in the wild-west of satellite pricing. When the European and Chinese competing satellites go up, it’s going to be quite interesting. There are so many rabbit holes to go down but, I will agree with @tyvandm about one thing: Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites could offer coverage across almost the entire sailable area of the globe. In fact, service over the ocean would be clearer because there are no obstructions across the entire horizon. Additionally, because the density of users in the middle of the ocean is so low, service would be quite fast. It wouldn’t cost the internet service provider anything extra to provide service across the entire ocean because the satellites are already there. Like with cell phones, the end product is going toward cell phones and iPads equipped with satellite connections at the price of something just above regular cell-phone service. Land service will be made moot, just as most people no longer own true copper landline POTS telephones. Amazon Kindle readers came with free 3G and no ads if you bought the most expensive machine. Of course that’s deprecated now, but for a while it was a thing. It’s likely a decade from now there will be some bottom-dollar machine with similar satellite service that will allow you to text, email or browse regardless of your global position. Love perusal your website and hearing your excellent perspectives. Stay safe out there!
When the government breaks up the monopoly on communication maybe some resellers will play fair, meanwhile its up to us to stay informed, so thaks for the insight Tim..! PS In the early 2000’s I had T-Mobile in California & had a fraudulent charge appear on my bill but the team corrected it within my very 1st call.. wheras here in B.C. 🇨🇦 I had a similar fraudulent charge appear & although the initial tech support (Rogers isp) was very understanding & assured me that it will be FIXED for SURE.. the ordeal has been ongoing for 1 YEAR.. with no end in sight…! So, again, we must keep informed when a rogue capitalist decides to cheat consumers simply bc they can. PSS Great segment man..!
Your last few points are the big ones… the “point of presences” on the internet, POP if you will. When you have land available you can put as many POP’s on fiber backbones as needed for the load. Out on the ocean you are limited to islands that may or may not have fiber internet connections for that backhaul to the main internet. This puts a strain on the older 2nd and 3rd gen starlink sats that don’t have the throughput for sat to sat communication for a large amount of boats, airplanes and other things on the oceans. So I can understand their problems with bandwidth in those cases. I also understand that they had planned to have the newer sats up and running months ago that would handle this backhaul but due to the long FAA time delays and the first launch failure of Starship things just aren’t rolling out as fast as they need to to keep up with demand. I’ve been a long time Starlink subscriber… back in the “better than nothing days” just to get away from Comcast’s dead lock over my area. So there is my personal disclaimer, I’m a 3 year subscriber that has been through the ups and downs of Starlink and I still say on a bad day they are better than dealing with Comcast… that I had for over 20 years.
Starlink uses mostly low earth orbit satellites and many of them to ensure high speeds. These satellites only have a few years life span before needing to be returned safely. This means that the system does cost allot and will always be more expensive to say, geosynchronous satellites which require significantly fewer satellites but will be slow and maxed out capacity wise. Basically it may never become less expensive in the long run. Rockets aren’t cheap….
This changes things for us as future cruisers. It’s our plan to purchase a 40 to 50ft boat and sail the seas all while still being able to work from home so to speak and maintain an income while doing it. This makes it not only more difficult but could also change our plans entirely thus costing the tourist industry of the Bahamas but also the sailboat industry as well. Oh and we were forced into purchasing the Mobile/RV version of Starlink because the NORMAL version was not available in NC in my area or at least ive been on a waiting list for three years now but RV shipped the next day it was offered. hmmmm and speeds at my place with no obstructions are typically 20mbs down and 10 up. might see 70mbs at 2am in the morning… wonder what the impact would be if all the sailors/boats decided to boycott starlink for a month… maybe a small voice? oh and they are sending that email to RV users as well so we can pay for FASTER speeds during high usage times. so yeah just a big money grab.
I doubt that it costs more for them to offer the service to roaming customers on land or the ocean. You will still using the same existing infrastructure that land based stationary people will. Also, if you are out in the ocean you will not be in a high concentration area so you won’t be taking away bandwidth from prioritized customers either.
That’s not entirely correct.. You don’t have to power down your starlink when you go sailing… once you leave hexagonal zone of land your internet will just stop working and then you’ll have a choice to opt-in for the mobile priority at $2/Gb that works on ocean. And yes, even when your internet stops working, you can access your account page to do that change.. Then when you get back in the land zone you opt-out and problem solved… That’s very reasonable approach! Most of the cruisers spend a lot of time on anchor pretty close to land anyways, which is in land zone per starlink map. instead of getting maritime plan you just pay for what you use. On top of that, they don’t charge you for any updates and location data starlink uploads/downloads while connected in motion. This is the best result of breaking their T&C we could get.. They don’t want to block us, they would lose tons of subscribers, what would be the point of that?!
Watching this today 10 July 2024 Star Link’s cheapest boat subscription is £247 monthly ($316US) for 50gb In-Motion / Ocean use with unlimited inland data. I wonder if simply in port or bay anchored counts as “inland. By comparison though unlimited data starlink for a house is £75 a month. Oh and the required hardware is an additinal £2470 GBP ($3160 USD ). We appear to have to pay more for the service than the US. ( I used my vpn to compare prices and we do have to pay significantly more than the US )
Personally I see Elon as a reasonable guy that is probably totally unaware of this as he has a thousand bigger issues to contend with daily. Yes early adopters always face the increased pain of higher prices but I believe if the sailing community is smart and unites under the banner of safety and the wonderful opportunities that starling provides for saving lives the pressure and the marketability of this will encourage special concessions for the sailing community. Possibly
There actually isn’t any extra cost for them that would justify a 100$ price hike. The satellite is in a low orbit and is doing correction maneuvers all the time regardless of how many people are using it, they are operating and managed regardless. Since sailers are a small group just like the super yacht people they can charge more just because they can without alot of public backlash. Yes there is a charge for priority but it doesn’t cost them any more than it would for priority on land at the same speed.
Small issue with your explanation of it costing the ISP more to cover sea than land. You mentioned that it cost less to cover land since there are more customers and thus satellites can be dedicated. Unfortunately though, I don’t believe that is how SL works. Their satellites are not geostationary, but rather are constantly moving in low-earth orbit (thus why they need so many). The satellite providing service to SV Delos in French Polynesia at 1PM, may be the same satellite you use from Miami, FL 4 hours later, as they quickly streak across the sky overhead. I think you’ll find that this is more about recovering lost revenue than it is about reducing expenses for them!!
Amazon, yeah….at beginning was super happy with prime membership, free shipping and stuff…then prime article came around and yeeey score! Have free movies on top of that! Then suddenly one day woke up to see that shipping have price cap, some ain’t free anymore and on prime article not only you pay for some movies but there’s a lot extra Chanels what are part of sub-subscriptions. Not so pretty anymore
When cell phone plans charged by the minute, cell phones all rounded DOWN the number of minutes you used. So a 2:30 call showed as two minutes, while the billing system rounded UP and charged you for three minutes. Every carrier did this, so if you dared to use 59 minutes on a 60 minute plan, you’d get an extra charge for ten or fifteen overtime minutes. Clever fraud, huh? All it takes is one change in one line of code to correct that, but none of the carriers ever did.
I’m a civil engineer and my first job out of college (late 1990’s) was building cell phone sites in the NYC metro area. This was back when they charged $0.35 per minute. There was a cell site in lower Manhattan making $250,000 in revenue PER MONTH! You couldn’t build the sites fast enough for the carriers. They didn’t care what it cost just get it done.
I was using the 50Gb plan but the way Starlink is metering the data usage is terribly wrong. I apparently “used” my 50 Gb in only a few days despite not doing anything except email and a bit of web browsing. No article streaming or downloads! Something very wrong with their system. However, it worked well with the original RV dishy. I didn’t have to upgrade to the new antenna.
We used att last year —- for a number of months using the international day pass. No SIM card swaps, 10$ per day for first 10 days..then 0 for rest of the month… adds to your plan… same number, unlimited. Worked most places in the Bahamas. We could watch YouTube anchored most places…not perfect, but it worked fine in the Bahamas’s. The cost difference between a local sim and the complication and nuisance made it just not worth the trouble…Our friends used this starlink this past winter… it worked fantastic. Solved the dead areas while off shore in the Bahamas. The question is how often can you switch the plan? Can I put it on the 250 version prorated for a day or two… that’s about all one would need? Would it be automatic? And what defines ocean? If I’m in the icw? Or anchored? Can I activate it while at sea if I need to?
I was doing the Puddle Jump when this went down. Just had passed thru the ITCZ. I’m not too concerned. I use WINLINK pretty heavily and have a WiFi and cellular long range extender onboard. I almost felt like starlink was a crutch for some beginning offshore cruising. It’s not perfect in medium seas. It needs a good power supply. Cheap inverters don’t cut it. I’ll shut down starlink until it all settles down I was fighting getting it anyway, and it sucks up so much time surfing. On the other side there were a couple offshore incidents recently where Starlink was a big aid for resolution.😎
I didn’t get THE ’email’… notwithstanding my liveaboard sloop has been in the same slip, same marina for 4 years… using my class C tcp/ip connection in the browser to take a peek at my SL router I read a nasty little note that I have been using my service outside the service address… I assume this is going to pumpout where the service address is still the service address I used to sign up… And, I’ve noticed the Availability hexagon is only partially over a small piece of land and the rest of the hexagon is over the GOM… ????
Is it really more expensive to service the ocean because of satellite coverage? You say in the article that one satellite can cover a lot of houses on land, which is true, but that same satellite will eventually be over the ocean since it’s not in geosynchronous orbit. Since they need to cover land at all times, there are presumably satellites over the ocean at all times as well. The problem, if there is one, seems to have more to do with the lack of ground stations. Although I’m not quite sure how that works either. If anyone could explain it to me I’d appreciate it.
We’re currently sailing international,ly in Taiwan for the past two weeks. First, no Starlink in Taiwan. (worked great in Vietnam, the Philippines and during the passages between.) I got the message you got. Said I was using Starlink for the previous 30 days outside my continent. So $150 Roaming to $250 Mobil Priority 50/gig. We expect that as soon as we’re out of Taiwanese waters it’ll work again. $250/month for crossing the Pacific is no problem at all. But when I get back home in California? I’ll want to get back to the cheap plan. Some Starlink options say there’s no going back…. I can’t see them sticking to this. My alternative would be to turn off Starlink instead of spending $250/month (+$75/month for my house connection – unlimited.) And yeah, I end up confused by all the names for stuff. Amazon is a big company and they have a rocket subsidiary Blue Origin — but they have yet to put a rocket into orbit. So how are they going to compete with Space X?
These satellites aren’t geosynchronous though, so as they orbit, a bunch of them are over the oceans, doing nothing until they fly over land. There is no reason it should cost them more to provide boats with service, as opposed to homes on land. They know boat owners have more expendable income, so they are going to charge for the roaming because they can.
9:20 good points about few customers in the ocean, but… Starlink satellites are not on geostationary orbits, which is a huge drawback of the entire system: they can’t target more satellites to the denser areas, every satellite they launch has a coverage band that goes around the world, most of which is ocean. Starlink is literally charging sailors more just because they can, they actually have way more unused capacity over the ocean than over land, and always will, due to how the system is designed. As for “building infrastructure”, Starlink satellites have a lifespan of 5 years. Because they are in low earth orbit, they need to constantly boost themselves up to stay in orbit, and fuel runs out. So the entire Starlink constellation of thousands of satellites needs to be re-launched every 5 years. TLDR: Starlink is price gauging because they are desperate to stay afloat a little longer. They will go under as soon as federal/invester money runs out, as re-launching thousands of satellites every 5 years, most of which spend most of their time over the ocean simply is not economically viable. Either that or the .01% will suck up all the money in the world economy, and the superyachts alone will pay for the whole thing.
Something to consider is that starlink satellites are not geosynchronous. Meaning a single satellite doesn’t just cover one area. That satellite moves around the entire earth. A satellite above New York today might be above China tomorrow. There are likely to be hundreds, if not thousands of satellites over the ocean as they make their way back towards land. This is unavoidable since the satellites have to be so close to earth to offer high speed internet. Starlink will have periods of time where satellites are moving across the ocean. It only makes sense that they put those satellites to use and offer more services to boaters. It’s a small, niche community so I’m sure it’s not a huge priority for them. But they will eventually try to capture as much of the market as possible. If that means offering lower prices or higher data caps to draw in more users then they will do it. So in the long run, if we all expressed interest but they know we won’t buy because it’s too expensive or not enough data, eventually they will cater to us to bring in more money overall. Otherwise the satellite will be sitting idle over the ocean, when it could have been bringing in $150 or so bucks per user.
I have a HAM radio general license, so I understand the technology. But I don’t get it. Why? Why can’t you use StarLink on the go? I can’t think of any technological reason why you shouldn’t be able to do that. This must be something that the sales, marketing, and legal teams came up with to make more money without providing any additional features or benefits. Like the internet companies…Internet only plan is $99 but if you bundle their TV service with it, then it’s only $69 plus $20 for the TV. Umm, that’s still $10 cheaper and you don’t even have to watch the TV. It’s just disgustingly stupid how they take advantage of us.
The Starlink terminal uses the same radio spectrum used by geosynchronous (GEO) satellite feeder links and a regulatory framework is needed to enable this. This framework is embodied in international treaties and US regulations and international treaties. The minimum spacing between GEO satellites is 2.5 degrees so the Starlink terminal electronically steers the beam to avoid interference with GEO satellites. The Starlink terminal is classified as portable so when in use it is not in motion. For mobile operation insuring that interference doesn’t occur requires that the beam be steered to within about 1 degree. So the owners of the geosynchronous satellites are in opposition and their concerns must be addressed. About 160 countries, the operators of the networks, and the users of these networks meet to resolve issues. When something new comes along, such as Starlink, they need to overcome the concerns of this community. And all of this may need to be revisited as the satellite constellation expands and the number of terminals increases.
Excellent topic and your historical comparisons to cable and cell phone service is exactly right. I’m no expert, but Starlink uses ground based towers to handle the thousands of users in cities. However, there are no towers at sea and their constellation is not complete, so it is probably more expensive/difficult for them to service ocean going dishes. It will get better and competition will force them into low profit margins which will benefit all of us!
the comment at 8:50 regarding if its more expensive for starlink to offer service on the ocean would only make sense if their satellites would be in geo stationary orbit which would mean they need to launch a specific satellite to cover a specific area of the globe and its gonna stay there at all times. that is not the case with starlink, their satellites pass over the ocean all the time because they simply have no other choice. If they wanna get full coverage of all the land areas they automatically get almost full coverage of the oceans at the same time. The truth is they charge more for starlink on the ocean because they can and because starlink is not profitable so they need to get more income from ships.
Now would be a good time to look into usb teathering if you havent heard of it, im not sure how cell service works on the ocen as ive never sailed across one, but you can always usb tether your cell connection to a laptop and get online that way lol i used to do it when i was poor and it works like a treat u basiccly just take ur cell data and connect ur pc to the web through it
International treaties and agreements may be playing a part a well. Many governments set excise taxes on communications originating in their AOR even when they have nothing to do about it. imarsat has to pay some fees to other governments based on users. I don’t know what if any agreements are in place on this service. Governments frequently increase prices when technology has good things to sell.
I have read the Starlink terms of service with a fine tooth comb from one end to the other. The problem with them (other than that they’re constantly changing) is that the terms they use are not defined. What is the ocean? Of course we all know in general terms what the ocean is but from a legal and practical perspective where does inland waterway stop and the ocean begin? After all, we’re talking about a legal contract here. I live in South Florida. It is impossible for me to transit the intracoastal waterway between Fort Lauderdale and Miami (even if I wanted to put up with a jillion drawbridges) because the I 195 bridge to North Miami Beach was improperly constructed and is the only bridge between Key West Florida and Deltaville Virginia that does not have an approximate 65 foot clearance height wise. The idiots who built it transposed numbers and built it to be only 56 feet high which blocks passage of any sailboat bigger than around 30 feet. So, if I am on a power boat and don’t need to worry about that bridge and stay in the ICW am I on land? On the other hand, if I have to go one or 2 miles offshore to clear the restricted areas near the beaches and several navy areas in order to get around that improperly constructed bridge, am I in the ocean? That’s ludicrous. I have no intention of trying to rip off Starlink by using my dish in the middle of the Atlantic ocean on a major transit far offshore. But Starlink needs to define where the Ocean begins. Here’s another example.
The Starlink service is technically capable of working worldwide right now. The satellites are designed to communicate with each other via an optical link so that when a one of Starlink’s earth stations is unavailable due to a customer being in the middle of the ocean or the system just being down or perhaps bottlenecked, the feed will bounce from satellite to satellite until a working ground station is available. This means that all the infrastructure over the open ocean is incredibly underutilized. There’s no way that they can orbit non-geosync LEO satellites to only be over land. I guess that Starlink can look at it a couple of ways. One way would be that there’s a huge amount of infrastructure floating around up there for just a few users, so the cost per user is very high. The other way that they can look at it would be that there’s all this infrastructure up there that’s not being utilized, so any money that they make from customers using it is better than nothing. For now, it looks like they’re going with the first scenario, even though my gut feeling is that they’d make more money charging people less and having a significantly larger number of users on the system out there.
Sounds like Starlink is following the models similar to the Hughesnet, telesat, viasat models. Plans based upon usage, throttled after u pass the cap or buy extra throughput. Is the way it is, been like that for the last 15 yrs. Hopefully your vision of how things will progress, but I doubt it, the cost to keep satellite based systems up and functional is never ending, and bandwidth is always a concern. This is one of sat companies methods to prevent abuse, and equalize usage.
In early days, a single starlink satellite had to see both you and a ground station for a connection to happen. You could be “near” east coast of USA and be assured that you would use a ground station on mainland USA and that was considered “USA” from the FCC point of view (satellite spectrum is licensed and the service would be considered a USA telecommunications service). But as SpaceX is building ground stations in every country where it gets a licence for satellite spectrum, you re no longer assured your packets will land in USA and as you appach Bahamas, it is possible it could land in Bahamas if SpaceX has station there and the costs to SpaceX are different. And with newer versions of satellites able to hop packets from one satellite to the next until it reaches a satellite that current has a view over a ground station, you can’t predict where your packets will land if you are offshore. ()and the constantly moving nature of satellites means the based station you made connected to right now can change ever couple of minutes as configuration of satellites over you changes). While there are regulatory differences and some difference in transit costs once you have reached a ground station, these are minimal overall and do not justify the $100 price difference. This is just a cash grap knowing those who need internet for their fancy row boats have cash that is very easily parted with. The satellite currently over you at sea may be underused because very few boaters would use it, but a few minutes later, might be over western europe and over very dense population.
At about 9:00 you say its cheaper for StarLink to use 1 satellite to service a land-based antenna, but they do not use a single geostationary satellite, their system uses many moving low earth satellites which come in and out of range of ‘our’ dishes. It should not matter whether our dishes are on land or in the ocean for the purposes of supplying internet connection and billing us accordingly, so I just don’t see a justification for charging more to provide service to ocean-going dishes…am happy to be provided with an alternative argument if I’ve missed something,…maybe like needing to ‘bounce’ around a signal from a few satellites to get to its destination???
I’m just looking now your website. And is very interesting. But I think you did a mistake on the “costs” for Starlink to run the service in the ocean. The satellites that Starlink uses are not “fixed” or geostationary as properly said, but they continuously move compared to the ground, because they are at much lower orbit. They are LEO or low earth orbit, that means they fly much lower than geostationary, and in order not to fall from the sky they need to fly at much higher speed than earth rotation. So to cover the land, they also need to fly above the oceans as well, since the oceans cover the great majority of the planet. So actually for Starlink any dollar collected from the service in the ocean is a dollar more for an overfly that they cannot avoid. But as you said, since for Starlink in the ocean there’s no competition, while on land there’s plentiful of competitors, in the ocean they can charge whatever they want, while on land they have to be cautious.
However they do have larger Mobile Priority plans: Data Amount & Type: 50GB, Mobile Priority Data – 1TB, Mobile Priority Data – 5TB, Mobile Priority Data. You also have to do it at 1 month at a time according: Starlink Mobility provides the ability to pause and un-pause service at any time and is billed in one-month increments, allowing users to customize their service to their individual needs. Keep in mind that each cell (spot transponder) is about 15km in diameter. Once customers like on fixed there is limited BW per cell saturate that it really will slow down. However as you say once at sea, just about all the time you will be the only one in that cell, so you could have full BW to yourself. Also the mobile hardware is $2500, so keep that in mind too vs the land based $599. Also the Starlink Maritime is the same exact price now as the mobile priority plan. However they don’t even reference it on the specs page anymore, so I assume its going away: starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1400-28829-70 Good luck, they know they are really the only game in town right now so they might as well capitalize on it when they can. If you have a boat on the ocean you can pay for vSAT or Starlink are really the only two options at sea. I guess that is why now both Carnival and Royal Caribbean have switched to Starlink as well.
I accidentally found a new way to get data while under sail offshore. With land surveyor equipment such as the Trimble x7 3D Scanner, and you can get a fix on 9 satellites 🛰️ you can turn your x7 into a “hotspot” 🤯 you’ll only get around 80mbps up/down, but it’s unlimited, for now. Not to mention live 3D scanning of the beautiful ocean floors!
I hear what you are saying and love the idea of being anywhere on the planet yet still connected when I want to be. The problem is the trade off. So many rows upon rows of satellites littering the night sky. If I was to sail off shore to get a better view, away from the light pollution of modern urban life, I would be viewing a sky so dense with artificial satellites that the stars beyond would be obscured. Like looking at the night sky through an inverse sieve
Years ago I complained about my cellphone signal and proce, and a friend brought me back to reality, he said to me “Grab some pots pans and circuits and build your own”, so to everybody here… Grab some rocket engines, make some sattellites, solar panels, some electronics and build your own. Too hard ??? then pay the man.
The analogy to cellular (land based) is erroneous. Each cell tower here is moving – these are low earth orbiters (LEO). So, it is costly to constantly be optimizing the beam pattern for each LEO for each and every moving surface station in purview – CPU power and potentially antenna reconfiguration, and network (inter satellite) coordination cost power and potentially bandwidth. This was not designed into the current architecture thus the price hikes for those who were detected taking advantage. You’re right the costs/prices will come down but not do to marketing gymnastics. New architectures and new hardware (technologies) will be required.
If Starlink satellites were geosynchronous I’d say cost is definitely an issue. But Starlink is not geosynchronous. The satellites move in their orbits around the globe as part of the business model of covering the whole planet. The satellites pass over the ocean regardless of whether anyone is using them. Any revenue collected in these areas is a bonus, not an expense.
Oh My Nauticals! I cannot speak for all “sailors”, but when you are “sailing” from place to place, is it not wise to be fully focused on the sailing and not sitting around playing on the internet? After all, just how much sailing are you doing? The boat is basically stationary like, 95% of the year. You move locations, then anchor it, or, mooring ball it, or marina dock the thing and surf some digital waves during those times. But when surfing actual real waves, the internet is a distraction that could result in boat damage at best, death at worst.
I ‘kind of’ agree with you: I expect that ‘in time’ Starlink will offer EVERYONE a mobile plan – there will be no more stationary ‘home’ system. If you have a system, then you will have an inclusive mobility plan. As you suggest, as Starlink improves its constellation and matures, with higher-speed units/satellites, these plans will tend to stabilize. Thanks for the article :0)).
I think your explanation on why it costs Starlink more was a bit lacking. What many people don’t consider is that the satellites primarily work as relays to another ground-based station in a geographically close proximity. For me, my ground based station is around 60 miles as the crow flies. Though the ground stations cover a radius of about 400-500 miles I believe. So as long as you are within that range of a ground station your burden on the system is no greater than typical ground-based terminal. However, once you leave that range of a base station, you now rely on a satellite-to-satellite link to carry your connection back to the nearest ground station. That link has less available bandwidth than the single satellite relay. Currently most of the satellites in orbit don’t have this capability either which is a huge factor. While this technically doesn’t cost Starlink any more money to operate once the satellites are in orbit, it does have a much more limited bandwidth (just like the early days of mobile technology) and thus incentivizes them to try to limit utilization to some degree through a combination of data caps and service cost increases, in order to maintain a certain quality of service. Basically, I believe it comes down to the math: We can provide poor service to 10000 customers for $100/mo or we can provide acceptable service to 4,000 customers for $250/mo. As the constellation evolves to include more 2.0+ Satellites with higher speed interconnects and perhaps more ground stations near the shore and internationally, I agree that data caps and prices with normalize.
The satellites are not “over the empty oceans” instead of the busy cities. These are all in low earth orbit, all zooming around the world. If sailors don’t use them, they make zero while they are over the sea. If sailors are encoraged to use them–at least they make SOME money, which is better than nothing.
I’m not a sailor, nor do I have Starlink. But I understand how satellite constellations work. As long as you can see the satellites, and those satellites can see a ground station (this restriction should be eliminated once Starlink has satellite-to-satellite data routing) it shouldn’t matter where you are. You should be able to use the service. These geolocation restrictions by Starlink are nothing more than a cash grab. I’m sorry that you sailors have to deal with this. Your point about it being worth it to have the satellites over Florida being worth it, but not having the satellites over the ocean doesn’t quite meet the sniff test. These are low earth orbit satellites so they will be over the ocean just as much as over Florida because unlike the geosynchronous satellites they are moving quickly relative to any fixed point on the surface of the Earth. Ok, right now because the first generation satellites (which is what most of them currently are) don’t have satellite-to-satellite data routing, in the middle of the ocean the satellites in view may not have sight of any ground station.