Freedom of the Seas is not a small project by anyone's standards. Instead, it is an entity of such immense proportions that once inside the vessel it is quite possible to simply forget that one is - in actual fact - promenading on a ship's deck. The ship's enormous square footage is divided into 11 passenger decks, the length of the ship measures 339 metres and the widest part 38.6 metres; the ship's theatre alone seats 1352 at a time! There are a total of 1816 passenger cabins, all of which are connected by the latest up-to-date technique to the ship's data communication network; cable as well as wireless.
Large-scale data transfer installations for the most digitally advanced cruise ship at sea
Eltel Networks is responsible for the functionality of the new cruiser's data transfer systems. As can easily be deducted simply from the ship's enormous size, this particular part of this maritime project is not one of the smaller ones. – For the data transfer networks alone, approximately 4,000 ADP-sockets have been installed onboard. A massive amount of fibre optic solderings has been needed for the optical fibre cable installations. A total of 185 000 metres of cable, supplied by SLO, has been laid. Freedom of the Seas is to be completely wireless with connectivity for regular mobile phone traffic through pair cabling, this being yet another novelty. SLO has advised Eltel Networks, its privileged partner, and distributed all network cabling system equipment.
Eltel Networks has already several luxury cruisers' data transfer networks under its belt, so they have plenty of experience in this, rather specialised, field. They have also already been contracted to do the ADP installations for the next two luxury cruisers in the Royal Caribbean fleet, i.e. the next two "siblings" for Freedom of the Seas.
Aker Finnyards' has three shipyards in Finland. The company is one of the world's leading builders of demanding high-tech specialist vessels, luxury cruisers and RO-RO ferries. Over a quarter of cruise ships built in the past ten years have been built in Finland.
