PHOTO: A new satellite system being tested on Oasis of the Seas could revolutionize Internet speeds at sea. (Courtesy of Royal Caribbean International)
Are cruise ships finally getting fast, reliable Internet service? Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Chairman and CEO Richard Fain thinks so. During a conference call with financial analysts, he revealed that the Oasis of the Seas is testing a revolutionary satellite system that could make annoying slow Internet connections a thing of the past.
"Interestingly, this system, by itself, will give Oasis of the Seas more Internet bandwidth than every other cruise ship of every other cruise line in the world combined," Fain said. "This is not only an important feature for so many of our guests, we believe it will be a particular help in attracting millennials to us."
Fain said the legacy systems gave cruise ships download speeds of about 4 megabytes per second. A year ago, Oasis of the Seas changed to a "much better system provided by Harris CapRock that substantially improved our Internet capabilities" and increased speed more than five times to 22 mbps.
Now, Royal Caribbean is testing a new satellite system on Oasis of the Seas from a company called O3b Networks, based in Jersey, Channel Islands. "Their mission is to bring the Internet to the parts of the world that don't yet have good connectivity, and until now, you could include cruise ships in that category," Fain said.
The system now being tested on Oasis could increase download speeds to as much as 500 mbps, "a truly transformational improvement," Fain said. Satellite latency - the time it takes for the signal to go back and forth - could be reduced from 750 to 140 milliseconds.
The line also plans to expand the system to Allure of the Seas and the Quantum-class ships now under construction. "But if it's as successful as we expect, we would consider rolling it out to more ships as well," Fain said.
And to that, we say "hallelujah!"
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