KVH, which was founded in 1982, announced in August that Starlink is now the fastest-growing service in KVH history. The main reason, according to Chris Watson, KVH’s vice president of marketing and communications, is that Starlink is managing to do something that is game-changing for boaters of most budgets with increasingly high connectivity expectations.
“I think that Starlink has democratized satellite communications for boaters,” Watson says.
KVH is a company that would know. For decades, it has been evolving its offerings as technology improves. At its start, KVH resold other companies’ communications services. In the 1990s, it became an Inmarsat reseller for airtime, and would resell antennas for other companies. In the 2000s, KVH launched its own VSAT service with the KVH TracPhone line. “After we launched that in 2007, at our peak, we maxed out at about 7,200 subscribers, or vessels, that had our satellite communications systems on them,” Watson says. “It was a steady build, not a rocket ship.”
By way of comparison, KVH became a Starlink airtime reseller at the end of 2023. This was different from before, when KVH sold Starlink hardware and then Starlink was activating the service. “We changed our relationship to offer their airtime, as well,” Watson says. “We have now activated in excess of 1,000 terminals. It took us six months to get to that. That’s the fastest-growing connectivity service in our company’s history.”
Winning Sales Pitch
Boaters are responding not only to the Starlink technology and pricing — which is simpler and substantially less expensive than many other comms systems — but also to the way KVH packages Starlink data plans and customer support. Starlink has its own website where boaters can order the hardware and activate the service on their own, with online tech support available from Starlink itself. KVH layers in different data plans along with its network of technicians, installers and live tech support.
“What we do is buy data from Starlink — we are buying data capacity at wholesale — and then we are selling it as a retail product that goes through our 24/7 live airtime support,” Watson says. “So if someone anywhere around the world wants to activate the system with us, they can call and we will answer. We also have that 24/7 for technical support.”
In terms of data plans, Watson says, Starlink has three monthly packages for general use. One is 50 gigabytes of data per month for about $250, and it’s popular among leisure boaters. Another is a terabyte of data, which is what families might get at home for streaming and gaming on ultra-high-definition TVs. The last plan is 5 terabytes, for commercial vessels and larger yachts with a lot of people on board.
Putting that into context, Watson says, a single high-def movie averages about 4 gigabytes of data. “If you and your guests on your a boat, over a month, watch 10 movies, you’ve blown through those 50 gigabytes, and you’re into overages or it slows you down,” he says.
To address that problem, KVH created custom airtime plans that allow for more data options without breaking the bank. “If you’re also doing remote work from your boat, in addition to family or guest data, we can do a 100-gigabyte plan that’s only $350 versus $250 for a 50-gig plan,” Watson says. “So you’re doubling the data for less than doubling your dollars.
“We have others: a 300- and a 600- and a 2,500-gigabyte plan,” he adds. “We’re offering more options now for boaters that really suit their particular needs, and it comes with the customer service, and comes with access to our global network of dealers and technicians.”
Boaters can still install the Starlink system themselves, but Watson says that for boaters who already have a favorite electronics dealer, “there’s a very good chance that they are a KVH dealer, certainly here in the United States. We will ship them the Starlink the same day, they can install it and make sure it’s working properly, and we can coordinate the visits for tech support with that same person or with a local technician who is certified.”
The live tech support, Watson says, has really helped to spike the number of installations that KVH is doing. “When we first started selling just the Starlink antennas but we weren’t selling the airtime, we sold several hundred of those,” he says. “A lot of those customers are switching to us for that 24/7 live support. You want to be able to talk to somebody.”
Room for Growth
KVH expects an increasing number of boaters will want those kinds of options, service and support going forward, especially as competitors to Starlink come online. Right now, KVH is seeing superyachts keep their VSAT systems while adding Starlink, at the same time smaller boats are adding Starlink where they previously had no satellite communications.
The price points for various Starlink packages max out around $2,500, he says, which makes the tech an achievable upgrade for a sizable percentage of boaters. “We’re seeing it on 28-foot sailboats that likely would not have had satellite on there unless it was somebody planning to do a solo trans-Atlantic crossing,” he says. “Now it’s your weekend warrior, fun boater who wants to go from Newport to Nantucket, or from Florida to the Bahamas. They wouldn’t have spent $10,000 on an antenna, but they’re perfectly happy spending $2,500 and being able to stream the NFL Sunday Ticket or being able to video chat with their office to work on board.”
Soon, Starlink competitors will include Eutelsat OneWeb and Amazon’s Kuiper. KVH already has an agreement to work with OneWeb, and Kuiper is expected to be in initial operational use by late 2025. KVH plans to help boaters with all of them, and with whatever else comes along next.
PROXIMA STUDIOS-STOCK.ADOBE.COM“We are network agnostic,” Watson says. “We can bring any of those services into our ecosystem to provide activation, service and support. That’s what we did with Starlink. We’re going to be offering OneWeb. When they get Kuiper up and running, we’re looking at whether it will be something our customers want.”
The timing of all these systems coming online, and with boaters wanting options for how to use them and service them, is dovetailing with a change in what boaters want to do on board overall, Watson says. During the pandemic, in 2021, the National Marine Manufacturers Association reported total recreational marine expenditures reaching a high of $56.7 billion, with sales of new powerboats at their second-highest unit total in 14 years. All of those boat buyers were learning that life really can be better on a boat and doesn’t have to be limited to weekend getaways.
“Boats became homes away from home,” Watson says. “Can our kids do remote school? How can I do remote work? People realized they could leave home and be out on their boat where they really loved being, and it wasn’t going on a boat as an escape. It was going on a boat as an extension of your home.”
Generational Shift
All of this is happening at a time when digital natives — generally, people born after 1980 — are buying their first boat or moving up from a smaller boat to one they can overnight on. Those boaters don’t just want to be fully connected when they’re on board; they expect to have total digital access, and they expect it to be affordable.
“For a long time, it existed at a cost,” Watson says. “People were saying $10,000 is a lot. When you’ve got an 80-foot sportfishing boat, it’s a lot, but it’s not as much in the grand scheme of things. Now we’re talking about people buying a $299 antenna that can sit on the hardtop. Sure, they’ll try that.”
There will always be old salts, he adds, who want nothing to do with smartphones or streaming services when they’re out on the water. But as time, technology and society march on, those types of boaters are becoming fewer and fewer. “The majority of boaters are out there with kids, and they do want it,” Watson says. “If your kid is getting impatient, let them do some gaming or watch something or get on social media with their friends, do a video chat to show their friends the fish they caught. You can’t necessarily do that with a cellphone if you’re cruising a few miles off the coast.”
And, he says, a lot of boaters are still figuring out which combination of hardware and services works best for the type of cruising they want to do. That trial-and-error mentality is going to persist as the technology options continue to evolve.
At first with Starlink, Watson says, boaters would add it and subtract on-board satellite television, thinking they didn’t need the satellite system anymore.“But then they start streaming ultra-high-def sports and watching lots of movies. If you go to the Starlink On Boats channel on Facebook, people are realizing how much data what they are doing requires.”
Increasing combinations of devices add to the data use, he says, often in ways that boaters don’t even realize is happening. “If they have their phone set up for automatic system updates, that consumes data,” he says. “If you’re at home or on free Wi-Fi, you don’t care so much. You can cut the cord and do every-thing through Apple TV and all the different apps. But when you’re on a boat, there is a cost that goes with that data, and it’s more than at home.”
As quickly as adoption of Starlink is happening on boats, Watson says, the entire concept of satellite communications systems being so broadly available is still in its infancy. Nobody knows exactly where the technology is going next, how long it will be before another major evolution, or if prices will suddenly start to climb.
COURTESY KVHAnd as good as it is, Starlink has caused issues for certain types of boaters. “They came out, and it was really inexpensive, and they grew tremendously, but they routinely change the rules,” Watson says. “Their policies will change. We ran into an issue with a lot of customers who had the original plans, and then they’d be in a different region on their boat, and they started getting alerts that they needed to change their plans or their service would be turned off.”
KVH is leaning into the idea that when that kind of disruption happens, its service network will continue to be the thing that boaters are willing to pay for, to get help from a real and knowledgeable human being. “We started running digital ads on Facebook and Instagram that said, ‘Are you getting this alert? Give us a call. We can help you understand what’s going on,’ ” he says. “It was probably the most successful ad we’ve ever run.”
Overall, Watson says, most boaters aren’t going to want to go back to the way things were in the past. They’re going to continue to demand even more connectivity options, as well as increasing levels of customization.
“I think in the next couple of years, there will be options, and customers will like that,” he says. “They will be able to choose which option works best for their boat and their budget.”
This article was originally published in the October 2024 issue.
