Ship owners are increasingly relegating geostationary satellites to the backseat and turning to low Earth orbit networks for primary communications at sea, according to a panel of multi-orbit maritime service providers.

A Starlink antenna costs $250 compared to the $25,000 price of a VSAT terminal a couple of years ago, KVH Industries CEO Brent Bruun said on the panel.

He said vessels can now get up to 200 megabits per second of service for about a dollar a gigabit, versus 20 Mbps on a typical VSAT for $10 per GB.

These orders of magnitude differences across three different metrics enable video calls and many other activities onboard a ship that used to be confined to land, significantly boosting ship operations and crew morale.

  • threelonmusketeersMEnglish
    2•7 hours ago

    a dollar a gigabit

    $10 per GB

    Doesn’t 10$ per GB = 1.25$ per gigabit? Their use of units is a bit inconsistent…

    • @halcyoncmdrEnglish
      1•2 hours ago

      This is most likely just an error from a writer that doesn’t realize that Gb and GB refer to two different things. Or just a capitalization error.

      To be honest the difference existing at all is infuriating.