The Carnival Horizon. Photo Credit: Carnival

Speedcast International has successfully delivered 3.174 Gbps of satellite bandwidth onboard Carnival Cruise Lines’ newest mega cruise ship, Horizon.

The data rate was initially achieved at the Carnival Horizon naming ceremony on Wednesday in the New York harbor. The Speedcast solution uses bandwidth from multiple satellite operators, in this case leveraging both Intelsat and Telesat. The company said that their approach consisted of selecting satellites with the best power, look angle and coverage, including high-throughput satellites with beams specifically designed for maritime applications, in order to deliver a “land-like” connectivity experience.

The fully-integrated solution designed for Carnivalcombines blockage-free connectivity using Intellian antennas and leverages frequency spectrums across C- , Ku-  and Ka-bands based on ship location, weather conditions, bandwidth availability and satellite coverage. This aims to allow all guest, crew, voice and corporate traffic to have simultaneous access to all available links at all times. The traffic is then routed accordingly via Speedcast’s global Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network, reaching its final destination with minimal latency.