How much bandwidth do I need onboard of my ship?

The calculation of how much bandwidth is required on a ship is the same as for an internet connection on land. Yet there are important details to consider:

1. The maritime airtime services can cost a multiple of tariffs on land. An exact determination of the actual need is therefore very advisable.
2. On many ships the demand for connectivity fluctuates throughout the year, such as when there are guests on board in the summer and the ship remains largely unused during the winter months.

Most tariffs can be flexibly adjusted up or down to react to changing demand, but the choice of hardware must be made in advance with a view to the maximum expected usage. Most important criteria are reflector size and the power of the transmitting unit, which ensures the capacity in upload. For more information refer to the question “What antenna size do I need?” The internet speed depends on the bandwidth or data transfer rate. It is measured in Kbps (kilobits per second) or in Mbps (megabits per second). The distinction between upload (sending files, voice- or video services such as Skype) and download (browsing, receiving files, streaming) is important. These are shown as two separate values. Download is usually higher than upload. Note that a reference to Kbps and Mbps is not about the consumption of data volume, but about the Internet speed, which is necessary to run your applications. If the bandwidth is too low, it results in long load times. When different applications are run at the same time, they share the available bandwidth. A common mistake is to assume that with a download speed of 1 Mbps, a 1 MB (megabyte) file can be downloaded in one second. Unfortunately, this is not the case. A megabit is 1/8 the size of a megabyte, which means you’ll need an 8-Mbps connection to download a 1 MB file in 1 second.