The disruption caused by Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite services is already visible with the naked eye; and that’s before any of the providers led by Starlink and OneWeb have a full service in place. But while there’s no doubt that LEO will change the game for buyers and sellers of bandwidth, there are multiple challenges emerging for owners.
LEO promises a re-writing of the rule book in terms of throughput speeds and latency, though the lower prices that some earlier forecast may not materialise in all cases. It is also forcing established satellite operators to reconsider their strategies, launching their own new constellations, service packages and even considering consolidation.
Shipowners are increasing the volume of data it sends and receives as operators look to increase efficiency, reduce operational expenditure and aim for lower carbon emissions. What is clear that to support this change, there is a need for both far greater flexibility in terms of service packages and guarantees in terms of bandwidth provided.
“We’ve been talking about the impact these new systems could have for a while, because they will provide much faster throughput and lower latency, making all sorts of new services and applications possible,” says Tore Morten Olsen, president, maritime for Marlink, a company which has agreements to distribute Starlink and OneWeb
“New LEO services will be transformational in many ways, not least in the way they are sold by the providers, which in some cases is on a best-effort and volume-based data model, rather than the guaranteed bandwidth, all you can eat model that VSAT users are used to,” Olsen explains.
The transition to a smart, digitalised fleet will require much more than the minimum data levels that operators have been used to, Olsen warns.
“There is no doubt that the demands not just of regulation but the requirement to share, show and demonstrate efficiency, monitor critical systems and manage components remotely has changed the conversation,” the Norwegian says, relating how some owners he talks to are considering removing IT hardware from their ships and moving their data fully to the cloud, changing their data needs for speed and latency in the process.
