After expanding into the air with Hawaiian Airlines and JSX, SpaceX’s Starlink could soon be taking to the seas with Royal Caribbean.
On Friday the cruise line filed with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to bring the satellite internet service to its fleet of cruise ships.
The letter, signed by Vice President of Operational Excellence, John Maya, requests the agency take quick action and approve their plan to bring Starlink to their ships.
“We write today to respectfully request that you act expeditiously and look favorably upon the pending application filed by SpaceX Services, Inc. and referenced above.”
Part of the reason the company wants the FCC to take quick action is because of a lack of viable alternatives to Starlink, saying over the last several years satellite internet service providers have “suffered from attrition, bankruptcies, and consolidation.”
“This challenging landscape has resulted in negative guest experiences onboard, with bandwidth constraints that have slowed our desired business advancements,” it added.
According to Royal Caribbean, their current onboard internet service called Voom is provided by O3b MEO, although the service has not been added to some of the older ships in the company’s fleet of 26 cruise liners.
The world’s largest cruise ship, the Wonder of the Seas (pictured above), was recently delivered to Royal Caribbean in March. It cost $1.35 billion to build, has 18 decks and can hold up to 7,000 guests.
You can read the full letter to the FCC below.
royal caribbeanh/t: PCMag
