Starlink Internet

[clamshack]

Like most ISPs there are personal (residential) plans and commercial (business) plans. Starlink has carved it's offering out in a similar way. The maritime plan is specifically designed for commercial (business) use. You will not see pleasure vessels, even very expensive ones, using the maritime plan. It is not geared to that market.

The major difference is always in the Terms of Service. They are all available on the Starlink website.

Additionally we will also see Amazon enter the market with a similar product in the next couple of years. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. In the short term it looks like, even cruisers crossing oceans, are going have access to high speed data for around $250/ month.

[Jon Hacking]

Nobody really knows what Starlink is going to do in the future, so many of these arguments are a bit silly. FWIW, I happen to agree with Tedd that the birds are doing absolutely nothing over the oceans (& that's not likely to change anytime soon), & given the option of getting some revenue or cutting a customer off, I suspect that Starlink will go with the first option. But I don't know any better than anyone else.

What I DO know is that it has worked in the past. Boats have crossed oceans with the RV plan, & it has continued to work the whole way, including in a different continent. I agree that Starlink not enforcing their ToS is a bit frustrating. And I also agree that they don't really have a plan that will fit most cruising budgets.

So it's all guess-work for us right now. The best we can do is to find out what works & go with that, even though it may change in the future.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by clamshack

Like most ISPs there are personal (residential) plans and commercial (business) plans. Starlink has carved it's offering out in a similar way. The maritime plan is specifically designed for commercial (business) use. You will not see pleasure vessels, even very expensive ones, using the maritime plan. It is not geared to that market.

Not sure where you got that from. $250/mo and 50 GB is clearly not commercial. The idea that it is beyond the means of even expensive yachts is dubious. Prior to Starlink plenty of larger yachts were using service from the likes of KVH paying $500 to $2k a month for significantly less service.

Additionally we will also see Amazon enter the market with a similar product in the next couple of years. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. In the short term it looks like, even cruisers crossing oceans, are going have access to high speed data for around $250/ month.

Wait if someday Amazon offers maritime service for $250/mo it will be for cruisers but Starlink today offering maritime service for $250/mo is not for cruisers?

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

What I DO know is that it has worked in the past. Boats have crossed oceans with the RV plan, & it has continued to work the whole way, including in a different continent. I agree that Starlink not enforcing their ToS is a bit frustrating. And I also agree that they don't really have a plan that will fit most cruising budgets.

The intersat links necessary to use Starlink sats overhead in middle of Atlantic didn't exist until recently. Prior to that you could use sats providing service near both continents and if things lined up perfectly maybe not lose coverage but you were using sats closer to land because they needed to be able to reach a ground station.

Irridium Go at dialup speeds is $140/mo for "unlimited". Go Exec is 125MB/mo for the same $250. 1GB from KVH is $600/mo

Put it another way if SpaceX had never launched RV/Roam people would be jumping for joy for marine sat service that offers 50 GB offshore near global coverage for only $250/mo. It is only SpaceX own lesser service that makes that seem "expensive".

Today Roam (RV no longer exists) absolutely does not work deep offshore. It has service in the cell adjoining land. You can have some costal service simply due to how SpaceX divides the world up into cells and those cells contain both water and land.

So yeah SpaceX probably DOES want to monetize those sats while over deep ocean. They could have just made Roam work globally everywhere on and off land. They chose not to do that and instead offered a maritime plan now a plan with a much lower pricepoint.

It is pretty clear the direction SpaceX is headed in. I also find it hard to believe that $200/mo (Global Roam) is massively affordable but $250/mo maritime plan is suddenly in the realm of billionaires and mega yachts only. SpaceX has continued to refine service plans I doubt the plans to day are fixed in stone. If necessary SpaceX might offer a reduced cost regional marine plan and/or a plan with a lower limit. 20GB regional marine plan for $100/mo?

[bstreep]

Originally Posted by Statistical

Today Roam (RV no longer exists) absolutely does not work deep offshore.

Not sure how you are defining “deep”. But it works flawlessly 400 miles from shore. I know from personal experience.

[Paul Reading]

I think that the market for Starlink on boats is huge but only if costs are reasonable. I am in Europe and I buy local sim cards for €20 and get about 120gb and this lasts for two weeks without watching streaming services, it does not work offshore. Only a tiny number of private boats cruise oceans compared to those coastal cruising.

So the market in numbers probably goes like this:-

Global Crusiing
Live-a-boards
Costal Cruisers.

My guess is that for Global Cruising the Roam service is well worth paying for. For live-a-boards many exist on a very small budget and even Roam will be too much for them. Lastly Costal cruisers are probably the group with the biggest budgets but the smallest need and are happy to pay the capital cost but it is an optional purchase and so the price needs to be reasonable.

My guess is the pricing structure for maximum revenue would need to be something like $250 per month for global maritime coverage but a 50gb data cap is not going to allow streaming services. For costal coverage then $100 per month is probably the pain threshold for most cruisers.

The problem for Starlink is how to stop Superyachts, CruiseShips and commercial vessels simply installing the non-commercial version. The answer to that is regulation. If they can get Starlink Maritime SOLAS approved then boats can remove other systems and they will not have the option to fit the non-commercial version which won't be approved.

Unfortunately this points to a different pricing structure for costal and offshore pricing for yachtties. Personally if this is the route that is followed then I woudl want to see it linked not to the country of purchase but to offshore or costal use. In Europe counties are so small to move from say Belgium to France for example is only a few miles in either direction or in the MED the French coastline is small surrounded by Spain and Italy.

I would like to see Starlink offer global hardware but with the ability to switch between costal and offshore contracts on a monthly basis. This would be the most sensible way forward. Most people would be able to pay the capital cost much like splashing our on a Irridium Phone/Go and just activating the service when needed. `for the majority of us that six months in a year and the occassional offshore use.

[maury]

Does a higher price mean more profits? That is simply an assumption I assume based on number of ships vs smaller boats. Are you taking into account all the other factors that go into pricing, probably not. Giving priority to maritime users and throttling with excess capacity may change the equation and results.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Paul Reading

I would like to see Starlink offer global hardware but with the ability to switch between costal and offshore contracts on a monthly basis. This would be the most sensible way forward. Most people would be able to pay the capital cost much like splashing our on a Irridium Phone/Go and just activating the service when needed. `for the majority of us that six months in a year and the occassional offshore use.

They do unofficially right now. The High Performance (In Motion) dish works with both Roam and Maritime. You can use Roam as a "coastal" cruising option and switch between the two from the app.

IF they ever did offer a costal or regional maritime plan I expect it woudl work the same.

For costal coverage then $100 per month is probably the pain threshold for most cruisers.

Given the extreme popularity of Roam plans among cruisers it would seem the pain point is higher than that ($150/$200). Now for people not living aboard full time I could see an entry level plan likely capped at a lower pricepoint once SpaceX has saturated demand at $150/$200.

[sailorboy1]

The number of boats I see around the last few months with SL, mainly in the Bahamas, is huge. My old RV system worked everywhere I went and worked in the middle of Gulfstream 2 days when crossing. But if it "only" works everywhere I go within 3 miles of land that is just fine with me.

I doubt most percentage of people sitting around on their computers debating this needs to be connected "out on the ocean" anyway. I currently see no need for me to switch plans and see no reason to worry about things I can do nothing about.

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by Statistical

... if SpaceX had never launched RV/Roam people would be jumping for joy for marine sat service that offers 50 GB offshore near global coverage for only $250/mo...

Today Roam (RV no longer exists) absolutely does not work deep offshore. It has service in the cell adjoining land. You can have some costal service simply due to how SpaceX divides the world up into cells and those cells contain both water and land.

So yeah SpaceX probably DOES want to monetize those sats while over deep ocean. They could have just made Roam work globally everywhere on and off land. They chose not to do that and instead offered a maritime plan now a plan with a much lower price-point.

It is pretty clear the direction SpaceX is headed in. I also find it hard to believe that $200/mo (Global Roam) is massively affordable but $250/mo maritime plan is suddenly in the realm of billionaires and mega yachts only. SpaceX has continued to refine service plans I doubt the plans to day are fixed in stone...

Statistical, I have several issues with this. Roam/RV certainly HAS crossed oceans in the recent past, & AFAIK, continues to do so. I admit that this is unlikely to continue, mainly because it undercuts the Maritime offering(s). But it hasn't just worked in cells that contain some ocean. Before the sat/sat laser-mesh went active, it (usually) worked out to the range of a single-bird hop to a ground station, about 450nm.

But where are you seeing a $250/mo Maritime plan? I couldn't find anything about that on the Starlink site. (OK, we're currently in Chile, so it might not be offered here, & the Starlink site could be blocking any info about it to us.) An extra $50/mo, $600/yr (for a total of $3,000/yr for internet) is significant to many cruisers, but is probably affordable to many as well.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

But where are you seeing a $250/mo Maritime plan? I couldn't find anything about that on the Starlink site. (OK, we're currently in Chile, so it might not be offered here, & the Starlink site could be blocking any info about it to us.) An extra $50/mo, $600/yr (for a total of $3,000/yr for internet) is significant to many cruisers, but is probably affordable to many as well.

On SpaceX website.

Global maritime coverage for boats of all sizes with up to 220 Mbps download while at sea. Starting at $250/mo with a one-time hardware cost of $2,500.

More details if you start the order process (you can fake it yourself just use any US address)

There are three plans:
50GB Priority Data - $250/mo
1TB Priority Data - $1,000/mo
5TB Priority Data - $5,000/mo

Additional priority data is $2/GB.

When you run out of priority data what happens depends on where you are

Maritime Service Plans. Maritime Service Plans are allocated a certain amount data for “Priority Access.” Priority Access data under Maritime Service Plans are given network priority over Residential Priority Access on the Starlink network. See Starlink Specifications for details on Starlink expected performance per Service Plan. After Priority Access data is exhausted each month based on your data limits set per Service Plan, the behavior of your Service will depend on the area in which you are operating. For inland coverage (including lakes and rivers), Maritime Service Plans will receive Basic Access after Priority Access is exhausted, which will result in slower speeds and degradation of bandwidth intensive applications during times of network congestion. In open waters (such as the ocean), you will be unable to connect to the internet and limited to accessing your Starlink Account on www.starlink.com, where you may purchase additional Priority Access so that you may reconnect to the internet.

Despite SpaceX saying "inland waters" multiple users have confirmed that it includes costal waters where SpaceX offers service per their service map.

For example here is service map for Florida. So if on Maritime plan and out of priority data if you were in the colored cells you would continue to get Roam like service.



However if you sailed beyond that you would be prompted to pay per GB or would have no service at all.


Given that I really doubt based on that SpaceX is going to allow Roam to work in the middle of oceans with unlimited data when Maritime is capped. It would remove the single advantage of Maritime plan. Roam w/ In Motion Dish would be the plan to pick not Maritime even for people with large budgets. Why deal with a cap for a higher price when you can have unlimited data even in the middle of the ocean?

As for people crossing hundreds of miles offshore on Roam. When was that? Since SpaceX terms changed this month? Non-mobile dish on Roam use to work at 60 mph before SpaceX blocked that too. RV service use to work globally for $135 too.

[clamshack]

Originally Posted by Statistical

On SpaceX website.



More details if you start the order process (you can fake it yourself just use any US address)

There are three plans:
50GB Priority Data - $250/mo
1TB Priority Data - $1,000/mo
5TB Priority Data - $5,000/mo

Additional priority data is $2/GB.

When you run out of priority data what happens depends on where you are


Despite SpaceX saying "inland waters" multiple users have confirmed that it includes costal waters where SpaceX offers service per their service map.

For example here is service map for Florida. So if on Maritime plan and out of priority data if you were in the colored cells you would continue to get Roam like service.



However if you sailed beyond that you would be prompted to pay per GB or would have no service at all.


Given that I really doubt based on that SpaceX is going to allow Roam to work in the middle of oceans with unlimited data when Maritime is capped. It would remove the single advantage of Maritime plan. Roam w/ In Motion Dish would be the plan to pick not Maritime even for people with large budgets. Why deal with a cap for a higher price when you can have unlimited data even in the middle of the ocean?

As for people crossing hundreds of miles offshore on Roam. When was that? Since SpaceX terms changed this month? Non-mobile dish on Roam use to work at 60 mph before SpaceX blocked that too. RV service use to work globally for $135 too.

Thank you for pointing this out. I thought, based on the email I received, the 50gb $50 ocean data was an add on to Global Roam $200. I did not realize a lower tier was added to the maritime plan.

Now the main issue seems to be the hardware. The maritime hardware power consumption is significantly different from Roam.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by clamshack

Thank you for pointing this out. I thought, based on the email I received, the 50gb $50 ocean data was an add on to Global Roam $200. I did not realize a lower tier was added to the maritime plan.

Now the main issue seems to be the hardware. The maritime hardware power consumption is significantly different from Roam.

Yeah hopefully SpaceX is working on this. A next generation smaller in motion dish that was lower performance but lower power consumption and cheaper would be ideal. Something like $1K and 50W consumption. Not sure many cruisers need "high performance". With a 50GB limit higher performance just means hitting the data cap sooner.

[bstreep]

Originally Posted by Statistical

As for people crossing hundreds of miles offshore on Roam. When was that?

Ugh… a week and a half ago. Soon enough for you? I mean, we ACTUALLY did this.

[chrisr]

i suspect that those of us who are actually using starlink (as opposed to those just rabbitting on about it) are like us...just shaking heads at most of these posts

while technically we may not be in the middle of the ocean, the tiny spec of an island we are on IS in the middle of the pacific, and at least 2500nm from the nearest starlink ground station...and much further from anything resembling a continental landmass

there is no starlink land based (ie non-mobile / residential) service available here

yet we (and many others here) are quite happily using starlink RV or Roam. our best down speed has been 169Mbps...although average is a bit less

we use it underway or stationary without trouble

whether this will continue is anybody's guess, but it works NOW. anyone who does not realise this needs to get out more.

cheers,