FjordLink: comparison of starlink and 5G networks for teleoperated vessel control

The rapid growth of Low Earth Orbit satellite networks, such as Starlink, is increasing global connectivity by enabling low-latency broadband access in regions where wired and cellular networks fall short. Prior research focuses on the performance of Starlink in terrestrial settings. Yet, there is limited research on the performance of Starlink in coastal and maritime environments, raising the question of how Starlink performs in the presence of waves and tides. In this paper, we introduce the FjordLink, a combined Starlink and 5G dataset for coastal maritime connectivity. We collect over 500,000 measurements using a Flat High Performance dish and 5G modems on a research vessel for four months. Starlink and 5G networks achieve median RTTs of less than 50 ms and mean upload throughputs exceeding 35 Mbps. Our results show that Starlink operates similarly (e.g., with a 10 ms median latency difference) in both maritime and terrestrial environments, and improves the 99th percentile latency compared to 5G networks. As a case study, we utilize traces from FjordLink in emulation to evaluate BBR, CUBIC, and Reno congestion control algorithms, where BBR achieves 18% higher upload throughput than CUBIC and Reno.