How to survey Wi-Fi on a steel vessel

Most vessel Wi-Fi problems are not equipment problems. They are survey problems: the network was planned the way you would plan an office, and a vessel is not an office. It is a moving steel structure full of machinery, watertight subdivisions and people who all use the network at the same times of day.

Why office methodology fails at sea

• Steel eats signal. Decks and bulkheads are not drywall. Coverage that models beautifully in free space dies at the first watertight door. Propagation on a vessel is decided by openings, corridors and deck penetrations, not by distance.
• The RF environment is hostile.Machinery, radar, other vessels, terminal equipment. Interference you cannot see is often the real reason "the Wi-Fi is bad," which is why a survey without RF spectrum analysis is guesswork.
• Load is spiky and synchronized. Crew use the network in the same windows: after watch, in the evening, alongside. A design that works for the quietest hour fails at the busiest one, which is the only hour anyone remembers.
• More access points can make it worse. The instinctive fix, adding hardware, increases co-channel interference in a steel box. Placement and power discipline beat quantity.
• The schedule is against you. Port calls are short and cargo comes first. A survey squeezed into six hours between a discharge and a departure is a survey done badly.

The methodology, step by step

1. Define what the network actually has to do. Crew welfare, operational systems, POS and payment traffic, guest access, CCTV, IoT. Each has different coverage, capacity and segregation needs, and the answer decides everything downstream.
2. Survey with instruments, not impressions. Walk the vessel with RF spectrum analysis so you see the interference you cannot feel. Record construction details: bulkhead positions, deck materials, cable route options, hazardous or restricted areas.
3. Model coverage before buying anything. Predictive heatmaps built on the real structure, not free-space assumptions. This is where access point count, placement and power levels get decided, and where the bill of materials becomes honest.
4. Design segmentation from day one. Crew, guests, operations and payment systems kept apart, which is also what maritime cyber requirements (IACS UR E26 among them) expect you to demonstrate later.
5. Install to the design, then prove it.Not "it seems fine": measured throughput, roaming and coverage, checked against the prediction, documented in a handover pack with the diagram, IP plan and credentials.
6. Commission under real conditions. Wi-Fi tested with the crew aboard and the systems loaded, not on an empty vessel alongside. Roaming across decks, failover behaviour, the busiest-hour case.

When the port call is not enough

Sometimes the honest answer is that the work needs more time than the schedule allows. Our answer to that is unusual but simple: our engineers stay on board and sail with the vessel. We survey underway, install underway, and commission in the conditions the network will actually run in: steel decks, real crew load, real satellite link, real weather. By the time we step off, the network has already been tested by the sea.

What to ask any surveyor before you hire them

• Will you do RF spectrum analysis, or only a signal-strength walk?
• Will I get a predictive heatmap before purchase and a verification against it after install?
• How do you design for the busiest hour with a full crew?
• How is payment and operational traffic segregated from crew traffic?
• What happens if the survey cannot be finished alongside?

If the answers are vague, the quote is cheap for a reason. The full scope of what we do, including design, installation and support plans, is on the Network services page.