Cruise ship internet was stereotypically slow, but Royal Caribbean has adopted a new generation of technology to make it the fastest yet.
On Star of the Seas, guests can purchase an unlimited internet package that provides high speed wifi to use during their cruise.
This ship is different from other ships in that it employs equipment capable of delivering up to 10Gbps in satellite internet.
All of Royal Caribbean's ships are serviced by Starlink internet, which provides high speed internet. It's been a game changer ever since the cruise line switched to Starlink in 2022.
Star of the Seas is going one step further with a Starlink Community Gateway, which can deliver "10Gbps of symmetrical throughput," meaning it can supply up to 10Gbps for both downloads and uploads.
Starlink shared the news on X, indicating the next-gen technology is available on the brand new cruise ship that began service in August.
Royal Caribbean reportedly spent $1.25 million to place gateways around the ship that can relay data back and forth with the orbiting Starlink satellites in space and terrestrial internet infrastructure.
Why this matters to cruisers
Having reliable internet on a cruise ship has been a top priority for many cruisers for quite a while, as cruise lines compare themselves to land resorts but often are nitpicked by customers for slower internet.
The internet speeds with the normal Starlink service on Royal Caribbean ships has been more than adequate, but this Community Gateway product has the potential to offer internet speeds on a ship that would be even faster than what's available at home or a resort.
More guests expect to be able to step on a cruise ship and use the internet onboard the same way they would on land.
With symmetrical 10Gbps speeds, it would easily allow for more bandwidth to be offered to customers and that means less waiting for things to load.
The potential for faster speeds is what this could offer.
Throttling?
Even with Starlink, cruise lines have typically throttled guest connections, regardless of the available bandwidth.
What this means is if a ship has access to a certain amount of bandwidth, each guest is limited to a certain fraction of it.
"Cruise lines are throttling guest usage so end users are not necessarily reaping the bandwidth benefits," wrote Scott Sanders of The Disney Cruise Line Blog on X as he shared his experience with Starlink.
We think the rationale for throttling is so that no single person uses more than their share of bandwidth. But the caps tend to make large file transfer and video streaming sometimes problematic.
Throttling could also be a cost cutting move. Making available enough bandwidth for guests to experience better speeds may require a higher cost. As an example, Starlink posted on its website that the Community Gateway costs $75,000 per Gbps per month.
Michael Bayley, President and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, alluded to how expensive satellite internet is last year when he publicly talked about it at an event.
"We got to pay a ton, a ton, a ton of money for WiFi," he explained.
"I sign the invoices when they come in [and] every time I see them I'm like, oh my God." Mr. Bayley said he cringes whenever he sees the yearly bill.
He couldn't remember the exact amount the cruise line pays each year but reiterated that "it's huge."
The good news is Starlink has a major advantage over traditional satellite internet that preceded it because it has low latency. This means the connection responded much faster, so there's less waiting for something to happen.
