Captains, you are your internet service provider!

I am sure that you have heard these stories multiple times over the past couple of years: that Starlink cannot be your only source of connectivity on board; that you need a back-up in case Starlink fails; that you should not remove your VSAT antennas yet as they can still be useful in many situations; and so on. While these may sound like appeals from internet service providers (ISPs) trying to defend revenue streams affected by the launch of what many consider the ultimate fast and economical solution for internet at sea, there is another side to the story that, fortunately, many captains are wisely valuing: internet connectivity is a necessity, but it cannot be DIY – at least not on a floating and mobile asset like a vessel.

Indeed, the experience ISPs have with their customers when they are desperately seeking a solution after losing internet access is priceless. And it is no mystery that their success depends heavily on how customers perceive their support service. I come from many years of working with mobile network vendors and operators, and I have experienced those situations first hand. Nights spent in data centres restoring internet service across different geographies and mornings spent in ISPs’ boardrooms reviewing what caused them tough times with their customers and designing mitigation plans.

I have also experienced it first hand as a customer and I do not think I have ever met anybody who feels good when unexpectedly being disconnected from the internet. I am in my mid-forties, so I know how to survive without internet – but think of the newer generations (including many of today’s yacht owners), who are deeply attached to their online lives. Therefore, being disconnected is widely considered unacceptable these days, and that’s why all of us have at least an internet fibre and a cellular subscription.

Any engineer like me knows perfectly well that technology fails and that if you are not the customer but the service provider, you are responsible for avoiding those unacceptable events at all costs – or you will lose your customers. Let us apply this to the yachting context and answer a couple of simple questions: is having no internet acceptable for my owner and guests? Do I want to bet my career and reputation on a single technology that, at some point, will inevitably fail?

Captains and engineers are, in effect, the ultimate service providers to their guests, and they receive significant pressure to provide quick solutions to the outage of what may be the second most important on-board necessity after food. Perhaps not in a smelly data centre or a grey industrial-estate boardroom like I’ve experienced, but the surrounding environment hardly matters when people are deprived of what has become one of their basic needs.

VSAT antenna domes can still be of great value. Like their shore-based sibling, 2G, they can provide almost global coverage, with the added advantage of allowing you to choose what bandwidth you need and when.

Continuing with familiar shore-based analogies, have you ever wondered why your mobile phone can still almost always find a 2G network when faster 4G and 5G are unavailable? It is because mobile service providers have a solid mitigation plan: the vintage 2G (or GSM). We all know 2G is slow, but it can save the day when we need to make an important call or send a message.

Does this scenario resonate with those working in yachting when considering low earth orbit ( LEO) services like Starlink versus older satellite connections? If so, you can see why exper-ienced ISPs recommend having a back-up connectivity plan – not only for entertainment purposes, but for safety too.

The good news is that on a yacht you can have a back-up plan far better than a 64kbps 2G connection. While Starlink has become the status quo for fast internet connectivity, new players in the LEO satellite internet services arena have entered the market, such as Eutelsat OneWeb and Amazon LEO. The former is already available in most established yachting areas such as the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, as well as many other regions, targeting global coverage by the end of this year. The latter has begun launching satellites and signing partnerships with internet service providers, with maritime commercial availability forecast for during 2027.

And if you still have those VSAT antenna domes installed on your yacht, they can still be of great value. Like their shore-based sibling, 2G, they can provide almost global coverage, with the added advantage of allowing you to choose what bandwidth you need and when. Yes, VSAT is expensive compared with Starlink or other LEO services – but how much is your owners’ and guests’ satisfaction worth?

Finally, although cellular remains a valid option too, I am focusing on what can provide consistent internet coverage beyond proximity to shore, that is satellite-based connectivity.

So do we all agree that Starlink, plus another LEO service and why not VSAT too, if the system is on board, could form a solid contingency plan for your guests’ satisfaction? A LEO + LEO + GEO set-up that can protect you from those unexpected moments when technology lets you down. Or a LEO + LEO + GEO bundle that can maximise internet experience and efficiency on board, especially during high season. If you add the fact that such combinations are increasingly engineered by leading ISPs to be simple to combine and manage, then it becomes close to a no-brainer for most yachts.

From our experience – especially on vessels with a high density of internet users such as 100-metre-plus superyachts and cruise ships – guest questionnaires have shown that internet quality is a major contributor to customer satisfaction and can significantly influence the positive or negative rating of their overall on-board experience.

From a technical point of view, the main building blocks for a bulletproof LEO-LEO-GEO solution are as follows:
• Antennas, ideally two for each service (for example a pair of Starlink Performance Gen 3, a pair of Intellian or Kymeta Eutelsat OneWeb antennas, and a pair of VSAT domes).
• A simple service bundle including data allowance from all these technologies.
• A connectivity control dashboard that can be accessed and used from anywhere.
• A platform capable of automatically switching between, or bonding together,
multiple connections, always with security features capable of detecting and blocking external cybersecurity threats and, of course, built-in redun-dancy to minimise downtime.
• A capable on-board network infra-structure able to accommodate gigabits of data, from cable types and categories to each piece of equipment’s capabilities – again, with redundancy in mind.
• A proper Wi-Fi coverage design, because you can have the best internet solutions and network equipment installed, but if you have weak coverage spots or interference, you will still suffer poor internet service.

The good news is that some of these building blocks are probably already implemented on your yacht, so in most cases this should not be a major undertaking.

But internet is like a highway: when you enter with your car, you expect to reach your destination faster and without issues along the way. If something deviates from those expectations, we feel stress (a study showed that video re-buffering increases stress levels by a third). And the larger that highway is, the higher our expectations of a smooth drive become. Yet there is always a chance that things may not go as planned due to traffic, unexpected accidents along the way, etc.

Meeting service expectations is another key factor that any service provider (you!) must focus on. Even when the above LEO-LEO-GEO plan is in place for fast and uninterrupted internet, speed is not usually the users’ main concern, the performance of their applications and devices is.

This is called Quality of Experience (QoE). From our experience – especially on vessels with a high density of internet users such as 100-metre-plus superyachts and cruise ships – guest questionnaires have shown that internet quality is a major contributor to customer satisfaction and can significantly influence the positive or negative rating of their overall on-board experience. Hence the importance of the Mean Opinion Score (MOS), which is vital for many businesses. For a yacht, MOS may not be as critical as it is for a cruise ship, but for charter operations the same concept applies simply on a smaller scale. It may also be relevant for private yachts, especially when owners and guests require business continuity while on board.

Managing QoE, however, is not a trivial task, although there are some interesting tools that can help.

Starting from the basics, every application has different requirements in terms of network performance. For instance, if you use a video-streaming application to watch a film, it is important that your network connection is fast enough to provide a smooth experience and high video resolution. If you are gaming online, latency and jitter (variation in latency) are much more critical than speed. If you are videoconferencing, jitter and packet loss are critical (see table above).

Starlink generally meets all these requirements, but on-board network infrastructure limitations, temporary impairments or congestion issues may still affect performance.

There are solutions on the market that can help you monitor your guests’ experience, such as the new OmniAccess Unity®, based on their latest virtualised edge platform, where you can view clear graphical indicators relating to network reliability, speed and stability that directly affect guest experience. With the same platform, you can also implement application steering strategies across multiple connections, and automated failover and data packets duplication, to maximise performance and resilience in a LEO-LEO-GEO environment.

The bottom line
Yachting is living through one of its best eras for innovation in a sector that, for years, was limited by the lack of fast connectivity compared with life ashore. Innovation, powered by digitalisation, is what will allow a luxury asset to remain truly luxurious without technological compromise.

Captains, you are the ultimate service providers to your guests. You have access to multiple connectivity technologies. You have the latest tools to monitor and maximise their performance. You have the power to make your guests’ on-board experience unique without compromises, and you can rely on the experience of premium maritime ISPs that, for decades and still today, have been offering expert support and innovation born from years of listening to you and your guests during challenging situations.

So challenge your ISP by seeking continuous innovations in your on-board internet solutions, and you will avoid those emergency calls to their support centre and those spikes of stress level to your guests, your customers. 

This article first appeared in The Superyacht Report: Captains Focus. With our open-source policy, it is available to all by following this link, so read and download the latest issue and any of our previous issues in our library.

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