Faster WiFi - Elon Musk Starlink Coming to RCCL Fleet

[Bill Miller]

Royal Caribbean has filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to bring Starlink to its ships, reported Matt Hochberg of the Royal Caribbean Blog. The cruise line's Group Vice President of Operational Excellence, John Maya, sent a letter to the federal agency to ask it to "expeditiously" approve a plan to use Starlink on Royal Caribbean ships.

"Working with SpaceX Services, Inc., we believe we have identified a true next generation solution for our vessels that meets the rigorous technical and operational requirements commensurate with our growth plans," Maya wrote."We believe our work with SpaceX, the first of its kind in the cruise industry will set the standard for other cruise operators and will mean a leap in terms of guest experience and business operations while at sea."

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article262411947.html#storyl

[RickT]

Given how bad the WiFi was on our March cruise anything would be an improvement.  

[viperfoth]

1 hour ago, Bill Miller said:

Royal Caribbean has filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to bring Starlink to its ships, reported Matt Hochberg of the Royal Caribbean Blog. The cruise line's Group Vice President of Operational Excellence, John Maya, sent a letter to the federal agency to ask it to "expeditiously" approve a plan to use Starlink on Royal Caribbean ships.

"Working with SpaceX Services, Inc., we believe we have identified a true next generation solution for our vessels that meets the rigorous technical and operational requirements commensurate with our growth plans," Maya wrote."We believe our work with SpaceX, the first of its kind in the cruise industry will set the standard for other cruise operators and will mean a leap in terms of guest experience and business operations while at sea."

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article262411947.html#storyl

Excellent!

[Jim_Iain]

Just don't hold your breath for the near term.  It is exciting news but there a lot of technical, regulatory and infrastructure requirements to be addressed.  It could take years before we can enjoy this but at least  RCL has taken the first step which the entire cruise industry  will benefit from.

[the penguins]

19 hours ago, Bill Miller said:

Royal Caribbean has filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to bring Starlink to its ships, reported Matt Hochberg of the Royal Caribbean Blog. The cruise line's Group Vice President of Operational Excellence, John Maya, sent a letter to the federal agency to ask it to "expeditiously" approve a plan to use Starlink on Royal Caribbean ships.

"Working with SpaceX Services, Inc., we believe we have identified a true next generation solution for our vessels that meets the rigorous technical and operational requirements commensurate with our growth plans," Maya wrote."We believe our work with SpaceX, the first of its kind in the cruise industry will set the standard for other cruise operators and will mean a leap in terms of guest experience and business operations while at sea."

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article262411947.html#storyl

If it's the same as when they introduced the current system as " the fastest at sea" it will come with a huge price tag. 

[D. B.]

If Elon is involved it’s gonna cost you…..

he didn’t get to be the richest man in the world from being generous!😜

[D C]

On 6/15/2022 at 12:18 AM, D. B. said:

If Elon is involved it’s gonna cost you…..

he didn’t get to be the richest man in the world from being generous!😜

He got that way by making every venture of his draw $ from the government.  About the only thing he does well.

 

Better internet would be nice, but it can certainly be done without Elon's space junk cluttering the sky. 

[Jim_Iain]

I was just reading an article on the Point's Guy that they are currently testing it on a RCL ship with a portable antenna unit and said that once it is approved and a new antenna installed it would be 7x faster than the test.    Hmmmm...  wonder what that would mean cost wise.

[Bill Miller]

Jim,  If you hear anything more please let us know. Thanks for the tip on cruise deck plan site. Most excellent and useful. 

[TeeRick]

On 6/13/2022 at 2:59 AM, the penguins said:

If it's the same as when they introduced the current system as " the fastest at sea" it will come with a huge price tag. 

No they will have tiered pricing.  1)Turtle Mode - currently included with AI.  Then 2) Slower Than Anything at Home Mode- at an added price or included with suites, and finally 3) Musk Mode- everybody who wants it pays a lot extra but not much faster.  Maybe included with Iconic suites at no additional cost.

[WorkerBee74]

On 6/14/2022 at 10:18 PM, D. B. said:

If Elon is involved it’s gonna cost you…..

he didn’t get to be the richest man in the world from being generous!😜

We probably have to pay for it in Dogecoin. 

[twodjs]

Really sad to see so many misinformed, sarcastic comments. 

[canderson]

1 hour ago, TeeRick said:

No they will have tiered pricing.  1)Turtle Mode - currently included with AI.  Then 2) Slower Than Anything at Home Mode- at an added price or included with suites, and finally 3) Musk Mode- everybody who wants it pays a lot extra but not much faster.  Maybe included with Iconic suites at no additional cost.

What?  No #4, Plaid Mode for higher end suites?

 

 

[Bgwest]

1 hour ago, twodjs said:

Really sad to see so many misinformed, sarcastic comments. 

I have a friend in Olympia, WA who hangs on every word Musk utters. He would agree with you. 

[D C]

2 hours ago, Bgwest said:

I have a friend in Olympia, WA who hangs on every word Musk utters. He would agree with you. 

Haven't seen any misinformed or sarcastic comments thus far. Some people seem to be in awe of everything that putz does in life, when in reality he's done almost nothing original except for being an ace at sucking at the government teat  and being a petulant child while somehow developing a following of willing Kool-aid drinkers. 

 

On topic, Elon has launched way more space junk than necessary for the purpose of internet communications.   Thousands of chains of satellites? Pointless for the stated purpose.  

[deliver42]

The satellites are already cluttering the sky. The FCC still has to approve  Starlink to cruise ships. Not a done deal by any means.

[canderson]

28 minutes ago, D C said:

On topic, Elon has launched way more space junk than necessary for the purpose of internet communications.   Thousands of chains of satellites? Pointless for the stated purpose.  

Annoying to astronomers, perhaps, but certainly not more than 'necessary'.  'Pointless'?  No, not that, either.  I don't think you've had a chance to research the plan.  I guess you'll just have to trust me when I say that the business model isn't silly.

 

Further, there are not 'thousands of chains'.  Each launch of a 'chain' contains 60 satellites, maximum (most have contained less, and the last 2 have had 53 each).  So far, there have been 48 launches.

 

I could pull up the current TLE for the Starlink constellation and tally up exactly how many are presently in stable orbits as of this evening, but I don't think the count wouldn't mean anything more than the letters TLE.

 

Demand for satellite communication bandwidth is going to continue to grow.  You can only handle in a given moment so much data per satellite and so much geography per satellite, especially as fast as they move.

 

You need a lot of birds to accomplish that with true global coverage, and as they're not geostationary like some, you also need to keep handing off comms from one to the next ... a bit like cell sites, only in this case, it's the cells that are doing the major bit of the moving - at about 90+ minutes per orbit, roughly 17,000mph.  It's not like you can slow them down, either.  Keeping something in low earth orbit takes some serious velocity. 

 

For at least a little longer in my accidental 'un-retirement', I'm responsible for the software that physically moves telescopes that keeps track of these things ... and others up there ... using your tax dollars.  The tax dollars you fuss that Elon is costing you are to keep track of what he's sending up, not to pay for sending them.  Look up GEODSS sometime, and don't get wrapped around the axle with the "D" word.  It's a misnomer.

 

 

 

[canderson]

28 minutes ago, deliver42 said:

The satellites are already cluttering the sky. The FCC still has to approve  Starlink to cruise ships. Not a done deal by any means.

Actually, the approval required will be for anything that moves, not just cruise ships.

Needless to say, the competition to Starlink is lobbying the FCC to deny that approval.

 

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by canderson
typoz

[D C]

19 minutes ago, canderson said:

Annoying to astronomers, perhaps, but certainly not more than 'necessary'.  'Pointless'?  No, not that, either.  I don't think you've had a chance to research the plan.  I guess you'll just have to trust me when I say that the business model isn't silly.

 

Further, there are not 'thousands of chains'.  Each launch of a 'chain' contains 60 satellites, maximum (most have contained less, and the last 2 have had 53 each).  So far, there have been 48 launches.

 

I could pull up the current TLE for the Starlink constellation and tally up exactly how many are presently in stable orbits as of this evening, but I don't think the count wouldn't mean anything more than the letters TLE.

 

Demand for satellite communication bandwidth is going to continue to grow.  You can only handle in a given moment so much data per satellite and so much geography per satellite, especially as fast as they move.

 

You need a lot of birds to accomplish that with true global coverage, and as they're not geostationary like some, you also need to keep handing off comms from one to the next ... a bit like cell sites, only in this case, it's the cells that are doing the major bit of the moving - at about 90+ minutes per orbit, roughly 17,000mph.  It's not like you can slow them down, either.  Keeping something in low earth orbit takes some serious velocity. 

 

For at least a little longer in my accidental 'un-retirement', I'm responsible for the software that physically moves telescopes that keeps track of these things ... and others up there ... using your tax dollars.  The tax dollars you fuss that Elon is costing you are to keep track of what he's sending up, not to pay for sending them.  Look up GEODSS sometime, and don't get wrapped around the axle with the "D" word.  It's a misnomer.

 

 

 

Over 4000 satellites is completely unnecessary to meet any goal of internet connectivity. It's space junk. I would happily contribute to any enterprise that would actively deorbit them. 

[canderson]

Just now, D C said:

Over 4000 satellites is completely unnecessary to meet any goal of internet connectivity. It's space junk. I would happily contribute to any enterprise that would actively deorbit them. 

 

You sound like an astronomer with a 'seeing' grudge, having  to look through all of the stuff up there that's 'in your way'.  I can understand that, and it would be justified, but it doesn't change the equation.

 

Do you know how much bandwidth each can handle, the signal strength as the satellites move off-zenith, and the required frequency of hand-offs?  Guessing not.

 

You could join the Russians, Indians and the Chinese who all very stupidly have played with 'de-orbiting' satellites, shooting UP instead of DOWN, and making a huge orbiting mess as a result.  The Russians presently own the record for creating the biggest debris fields up there.

 

But you're in luck.  Even at ~550km, there's atmosphere up there, and they'll all come down eventually.

 

[Moonarino]

45 minutes ago, canderson said:

. . . Demand for satellite communication bandwidth is going to continue to grow.  You can only handle in a given moment so much data per satellite and so much geography per satellite, especially as fast as they move.

 

. . . For at least a little longer in my accidental 'un-retirement', I'm responsible for the software that physically moves telescopes that keeps track of these things ... and others up there ... using your tax dollars.  The tax dollars you fuss that Elon is costing you are to keep track of what he's sending up, not to pay for sending them.  Look up GEODSS sometime, and don't get wrapped around the axle with the "D" word.  It's a misnomer.

 

Yep, just like it has for most of a generation. It's amazing, overwhelming to think about. We want all 21st-century life's goodies but complain about what it takes to put the goodies in place.

 

Colorado. Lowry AFB was where I learned my first big lesson about satellites (and "satcom"), sometime around 1979.

 

[D C]

28 minutes ago, canderson said:

 

You sound like an astronomer with a 'seeing' grudge, having  to look through all of the stuff up there that's 'in your way'.  I can understand that, and it would be justified, but it doesn't change the equation.

 

Do you know how much bandwidth each can handle, the signal strength as the satellites move off-zenith, and the required frequency of hand-offs?  Guessing not.

 

You could join the Russians, Indians and the Chinese who all very stupidly have played with 'de-orbiting' satellites, shooting UP instead of DOWN, and making a huge orbiting mess as a result.  The Russians presently own the record for creating the biggest debris fields up there.

 

But you're in luck.  Even at ~550km, there's atmosphere up there, and they'll all come down eventually.

 

Is 4000+ satellites necessary to provide adequate bandwidth? No, it is not.  

Could the same throughput be achieved with fewer satellites in higher orbit? Yes

 

And deorbiting junk doesn't need to be done from below. 

[canderson]

2 hours ago, Moonarino said:

Yep, just like it has for most of a generation. It's amazing, overwhelming to think about. We want all 21st-century life's goodies but complain about what it takes to put the goodies in place.

 

Colorado. Lowry AFB was where I learned my first big lesson about satellites (and "satcom"), sometime around 1979.

 

This particular program is managed at a technical level out of Colorado Springs.  Wow, 1979.  Satcom was really just barely getting started back then, but by then, there was already recognition that a program like GEODSS was needed and was well on its developmental path.

 

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by canderson
usual typoz

[canderson]

2 hours ago, D C said:

Is 4000+ satellites necessary to provide adequate bandwidth? No, it is not.  

Could the same throughput be achieved with fewer satellites in higher orbit? Yes

 

And deorbiting junk doesn't need to be done from below. 

There are only about half that many in orbit at the moment.

 

Chuckle.  I remember in the early days of dial-up when no one thought having more than a T1 made any sense for a server.  Where's your sense of history?

 

Let me tell you something about bandwidth.  If you wanted to deal with just the images we are presently creating from one sensor/camera, understand that our *.fits images are 110MB each x 5 frames per second.  Just the raw data, not counting the necessary overhead, runs at 4.4Gb/sec.  That's a problem that even Starlink can't solve yet.  What if we needed mobile deployment of our assets?

 

Each satellite is capable, at present, of only about 20Gbps total on the downlink side, and it's asymmetric, so uplink capacity isn't near that.

 

And as to the other issue, yes, just noting the stupidity of certain governments when it comes to dealing with an already messy situation up there, now made worse by bad decisions.

 

So rail on Elon if it makes you feel better, but as a solution to a real, current problem aboard ship, it's a vast improvement over what is presently made available.

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by canderson

[Aloha 1]

12 hours ago, D C said:

Haven't seen any misinformed or sarcastic comments thus far. Some people seem to be in awe of everything that putz does in life, when in reality he's done almost nothing original except for being an ace at sucking at the government teat  and being a petulant child while somehow developing a following of willing Kool-aid drinkers. 

 

On topic, Elon has launched way more space junk than necessary for the purpose of internet communications.   Thousands of chains of satellites? Pointless for the stated purpose.  

Done nothing?? Invented PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, etc. The man is a genius, a modern Leonardo Da Vinci. He also happens to have Aspergers Syndrome which, in many people, exhibits high intelligence.

 

You seem bitter. Did he fire you?