Cruise Ship & Maritime Network Solutions
On-board network design, refit planning, and lifecycle support for cruise lines and commercial fleets — engineered for environments where a technician can't just drive over.
Why ship networks are a specialist discipline
A vessel is a steel Faraday cage that moves. Bulkheads kill Wi-Fi propagation, salt air corrodes hardware, and the nearest replacement switch may be three ports away. Design decisions that are minor on land — access point placement, spare-parts strategy, cable routing — decide whether your crew can fix a fault at sea or whether revenue-generating systems stay down until the next port call.
Satellite backhaul changed with LEO constellations, but the on-board LAN is now the bottleneck on many ships. We design vessel networks that make full use of modern connectivity: segmented for passengers, crew, and operational technology; redundant where downtime costs real money; and documented so any competent engineer can service them.
What we deliver
- Vessel-wide coverage surveys: deck-by-deck RF planning that accounts for steel bulkheads, public areas, cabins, and crew spaces.
- N+1 core design: redundant core switching and routing so a single hardware failure never takes the ship offline.
- Satellite/WAN integration: VSAT and LEO (Starlink-class) link aggregation, failover, and bandwidth management.
- Network segmentation: strict separation of passenger, crew, point-of-sale, and operational technology traffic.
- Refit-window planning: upgrade plans scoped to fit dry-dock and wet-dock windows, with pre-staged, pre-configured hardware.
- Remote monitoring & shore support: proactive fault detection and remote diagnostics between port calls.
FAQ
Can the network be upgraded while the ship is in service?
Partially, yes. Cabin-area access points, edge switches, and configuration work can be phased during normal operation. Core replacements and major cabling runs are best scoped into a refit window — we plan both variants and tell you honestly which work belongs where.
Starlink solved our bandwidth problem — why invest in the on-board network?
LEO satellite raised the ceiling on the WAN link, which exposes the next bottleneck: ageing on-board switching, flat network segmentation, and Wi-Fi designed for a fraction of today's device count. If passengers still complain, the problem is usually inside the hull.
Do you work with class societies and shipyard schedules?
Yes. Our designs respect classification and safety constraints on cable routing and equipment placement, and our refit plans are built around the yard's schedule — including pre-configuration of all hardware before it arrives at the dock.
Planning a newbuild, refit, or fleet upgrade?
Talk to engineers who design for the sea. We'll assess your current on-board infrastructure and give you a realistic, phased plan.
Request a Vessel Network Assessment