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Internet in the middle of the Ocean?
So I am going on a cruise to the Caribbean this summer and doing some planning ahead of time. I will definitely need internet access and will likely buy one of the passes. Has anyone had experience with the satellite internet on cruise ships like the Royal Carribean ones? How slow was it? Is this the only option?
Comments
Slow as shit, don't expect to do anything productive
I'm on satellite internet on a Southwest flight and it's slow as all hell, both in throughput and latency. Not a cruise ship, but pretty much same stuff -- though maybe Royal Carribean will buy a bit of a fatter pipe.
Satellite is pretty much your only option considering you will, literally, be out in the middle of the ocean.
I was on the Epic from NCL last summer, and I just tethered my phone for internet while I was there, I got about 2Mbit/s (certainly not the best, but it was free, instead of paying $20 for the internet cafe). I would guess that Royal Carribean would be similar, but IMHO, Royal Carribean > NCL.
Never been on a cruise ship, but from what I've heard: unbearably slow.
I used Delta's Gogo wi-fi once (they had just launched it so they were giving out free access coupons). It was OK, not super-fast. Then again, Gogo uses EVDO, not satelite...
I tried that once, only issue is depending on where you are going there won't be any cellphone reception.
Judging from what I experienced on NCL, RC would have okay cell phone reception.
@Brandon
What ship are you going on?
Won't the cell reception be via a foreign cell operator?
Horribly slow on ships, and horribly expensive. I forget what the rates were with Carnival but pretty much not worth the cost unless you needed to send an emergency email to tell your neighbor your key is under the doormat and you forgot to turn the stove off before you left.
It showed Verizon Wireless on my phone while I was on the ship. When we docked, it was "roaming"
Jewel of the Seas
I never knew the data roaming extended that far?
Verizon might have coverage out there, if they do, get a prepaid mifi with them and buy as much data as you need
My current cell phone company is Canadian. Based on a quick skim on their website, this could get expensive! XD
It goes to roaming when you're docked internationally. On the boat it should be Verizon Wireless.
Are you on Verizon? AT&T is roaming on the ship AFAIK.
i used to serve as a medical officer for offshore oil and gas. their vsat is 2MB and thats top of the line vsat serviceand yes its slow as hell.
2MB .. slow ... lucky to get 1.5MB in Australia ....
I don't know where you like but ADSL2+ will easily get you that speed.
RC is very slow. Email takes a long time.
Also costs like 60 cents a minute.
@trewq I am on ADSL2+ 1km from the exchange max I've ever had was 1.3mb/s and I pay $99 a month ....
According to Telstra 100kb/s + is classified as ADSL2+
That's why people who know what they are doing use a proper provider like Internode. They wouldn't be happy if you were getting those speeds and would do something about it.
Hence, in December 2006 we took a random sample 7,305 Internode ADSL2+ broadband services, each connected to an Agile DSLAM and using the ADSL2+ protocol (G992.5 Annex A ADSL2+ over POTS). We found the following distribution:
13.4% achieve a download synch speed of higher than 20 Mbps
27.7% achieve a download synch speed of between 15 Mbps and 20 Mbps
22.1% achieve a download synch speed of between 10 Mbps and 15 Mbps
23.0% achieve a download synch speed of between 5 Mbps and 10 Mbps
13.8% achieve a download synch speed of less than 5 Mbps
So over 63% of these customers were achieving 10 Mbps download synch speed or better.
http://www.internode.on.net/residential/adsl_broadband/easy_broadband/performance/
Could just be a bad personal experience, but I was accommodated on a cruise ship last summer (whilst docked) for a few weeks. I could only even reach the wi-fi with my door open. Not sure if all cruise ships have something odd in the doors that prevents signal getting through, but as soon as it was opened I hit full signal.
Just something worth noting.
Just join the ii bandwagon.
http://www.mtnsat.com/mtn-markets/cruise-lines handles all cruise line internet satellite communication. Branch off of AT&T.
RCCI, Norwegian, pretty much any larger ship you'll go on that has internet uses MTN.
Once out of port / far enough away from towers, they switch on a proxy essentially that takes over the cell phone waves.
You'll often see "Cellular @ Sea" as the carrier - If so, data is extremely expensive, calls are 1.49 - 1.99/minute, and texts are 50 cents each.
The bandwidth isn't terrible on ships, it's the latency that will get you, often 800-1200ms around Bermuda, etc.
Watch out for the data pricing, an iPhone / smart phone should be shut off in the safe when not using it. Don't want to be downloading email that costs thousands when you get off the ship.
If you take a cruise up the New England coast however, you might be just close enough to pull a normal signal from land, where they cant turn on the MTN network.