New Ideas Upgrade Cruise Ship Internet

At Seatrade Cruise Global, I had the chance to speak with Ole Kristian Sivertsen, president of Global Eagle’s cruise, ferry and yacht services about where the company is heading with its internet access aboard Norwegian Cruise Line and beyond.

I know Global Eagle by way of MTN, one of cruising’s first connectivity brands. Sivertsen informs me that Global Eagle was effectively formed by merging MTN’s maritime satellite services, EMC’s shoreside satellite services and Global Eagle Entertainment’s film and television material under one umbrella.

“We are now a leading content and connectivity provider for air, sea and land, basically,” he said. “The merger between content and connectivity is an important thing for us because really: What are the internet pipes for? It’s for consuming digital content of some sort and, of course, providing internet connectivity so they can use whatever they use at home …”

To that end, it is Global Eagle’s primary focus to create the best overall experience for guests at sea. Competitors often concern themselves with hardware and bandwidth, but Global Eagle is more about software and efficiency.

“Over the last year or two, we’ve put a lot of innovation efforts into changing this industry, really changing it from the traditional focus on QoS [quality of service] and bits and bytes and technical parameters – I mean everyone is talking about how many megabits and bytes and hertz … and how much network capacity will you commit to over time,” he explained.

“Whereas all of those things are very important technically, but the thing we really need to focus on as an industry is how is the experience for the users, in the hand of the user. So, we’ve been driving a very strong shift towards what we call and what we named quite some time, a year or two back ago, as the QoE factor, the Quality of Experience.”

A content provider as much as a connectivity one, Global Eagle tries to store as much content onboard ahead of time, essentially broadcasting it to the ship as a whole rather than individuals fetching it.

Sivertsen said, “We’ve developed that with advanced algorithms that are following the trends and the behavior of the internet itself and are more or less able to predict the behavior of what’s trending, what’s going on, what people need, to make sure a lot of the content that the users will use while they’re onboard is actually locally on the vessel before they even ask for it.”

In fact, the company is finding that more than 67 percent of all web browsing can be delivered internally, freeing up capacity for things that more directly impact quality of experience.

Another step towards efficiency is the order in which download and upload requests are placed in line. This way, a user browsing CNN.com isn’t stuck waiting long behind one uploading multiple videos.

Sivertsen added, “We’ve developed some unique technology to address just that and make sure that we really give priorities to these kind of things in that queue so that really we address the quality of experience …”

The goal is to ultimately create a partnership model with cruise lines wherein they can be supplied with dynamic bandwidth and are not required to repeatedly seek out quotes for additional capacity. Norwegian Cruise Line, for one, has signed a multi-year agreement with Global Eagle for enhanced internet and entertainment services on its 14-ship fleet. 

As part of the services, Global Eagle will provide Norwegian with tiered Wi-Fi plans, texting and video. Guests are anticipating access to a portal of television programming, on-demand films, games and special event broadcasts.

“Under this new agreement with Global Eagle, we’re looking to expand our onboard communication and entertainment experience for our guests,” said Ross Henderson, NCL’s vice president of onboard revenue, in a press release. “In addition, Global Eagle’s portal will enable us to manage our onboard revenue-producing services, entertainment and information more efficiently.”

“This new partnership agreement with NCLH is a giant step toward achieving our vision of delivering an unparalleled QoE in reliable high-speed Wi-Fi and entertainment for people on the move, whether on an airplane, cruise ship or luxury yacht,” added Sivertsen in the press release.

“One of our key competitive advantages in the marketplace is our ability to offer end users a QoE similar to what they get at a luxury land resort.”