Ship owners are increasingly relegating geostationary satellites to the backseat and turning to low Earth orbit networks for primary communications at sea, according to a panel of multi-orbit maritime service providers.

A Starlink antenna costs $250 compared to the $25,000 price of a VSAT terminal a couple of years ago, KVH Industries CEO Brent Bruun said on the panel.

He said vessels can now get up to 200 megabits per second of service for about a dollar a gigabit, versus 20 Mbps on a typical VSAT for $10 per GB.

These orders of magnitude differences across three different metrics enable video calls and many other activities onboard a ship that used to be confined to land, significantly boosting ship operations and crew morale.