Advanced Television

Speedcast sees connectivity to cruise ships surge

March 16, 2017

By Chris Forrester

Fast-expanding video and broadband connectivity and facilities company Speedcast says the amount of bandwidth it provided an “unprecedented” amount of capacity to its cruise fleet customers (and crew) in 2016. Speedcast says 2017’s demand is “surging” ahead.

“As the launch of new, larger ships with thousands of guests and crew continues to drive consumption, bandwidth requirements have spiked due to the increasing adoption of newer data intensive applications.  Onboard events are streamed back to shore by both guests and crew as uplinked content bandwidth requirements are moving closer to their downlink counterparts.  The highest consuming ships are using multiple terabytes of data per month.  In addition, with the number of connected devices per person growing, the demand for bandwidth will continue to surge in 2017,” says Speedcast.

“We realise that reliable high speed connectivity increases passenger satisfaction and the more speed we can provide, the better,” said Cynthia Gillis, VP Cruise, SpeedCast.  “We were the first communications company to provide 100 Mbps to a single cruise ship and now, thanks to our customers, we are providing a record amount of bandwidth.”

Speedcast says it serves more than 10,000 maritime vessels from cruise ships to oil rigs and fishing boats.

Categories: Articles, Broadband