Purchasing increasingly ostentatious yachts has become a pastime for the ultra-rich, but even the fanciest boat in the world is currently stuck with poor internet connectivity. That’s about the change, though. Starlink has announced a version of the service specifically for boats, ships, yachts, and oil rigs. The service is a perfect add-on for someone who spent a few hundred million on a boat — the setup costs $10,000, and the monthly fee clocks in at $5,000.
SpaceX launched Starlink as a beta service in 2020, leveraging its growing megaconstellation of satellites to deliver internet access to remote areas. Unlike older takes on satellite internet, Starlink offers speeds over 100 Mbps with latency only a little worse than wired and cellular connections.
On dry land, customers have to pony up $599 for the Starlink dish, plus $110 per month for stationary service or $135 for an RV. That’s a lot less than the new Starlink Maritime service, but this is a different product. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took a break from not buying Twitter to confirm that Starlink Maritime uses a more powerful dual terminal design, making it capable of higher speeds than its terrestrial siblings.
With that fancy $10,000 dish, the service comes with higher “performance goals” of 100-350 Mbps down and 20-40 Mbps up with less than 99ms of latency. The “regular” Starlink terminals pull down about 100 Mbps, but performance can vary dramatically. Plus, Starlink isn’t promising that your $5,000 monthly fee will get you a few hundred megabits — that’s just its goal. The service isn’t available globally, either. The image above shows the regions where you can get a Starlink signal, but hey, at least there won’t be any trees in the way on the open ocean.
Still, Starlink will most likely be a step-up for anyone who needs connectivity on a boat. The SpaceX Instagram posted a demo of the Maritime service streaming video of a recent Falcon 9 landing. The video (below) has Starlink Maritime on the right, which looks very clear. On the left, an unnamed enterprise solution for ship-based connectivity, which Musk says costs $150,000 per month. Impressive if true.
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If you’ve got a boat in need of bandwidth, you can order Starlink Maritime right now. It’ll even ship the hardware in just two weeks — residential dishes are backordered until 2023. Starlink Maritime subscribers will have the option to upgrade to improved flat panel terminals by the end of the year, too.
Now read:
- Dozens of Starlink Satellites Lost to Geomagnetic Storm Following Launch
- Starlink Is Already Getting Close to Wired Broadband Speeds
- NASA Raises Concerns About Starlink Expansion Plans
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