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Imessage with WIFI on ship


Ex-Airbalancer

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If you have a data plan, can you Imessage between phones on ship

I wonder how much time would it eat up on your plan

It would be nicer then getting walk talks

 

Data is very expensive on the ship, and charged by the minute not by how much you use (like a cellular plan is). You would have to be logged in on both devices continuously. iMessage (if not using FaceTime) should work fine even with the limited bandwidth, but you're looking at $1.50/minute for two devices. :(

 

Oh and if you leave the 3G turned on with your phone, last I heard it was $20/MB at sea. Which, and I mention only for fun, if you used 2GB in a month like AT&T gives you on land, is $40,000!

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Sounds like a good idea to leave the phones on airplane mode and leave notes and phone messages :)

 

Tom

 

Data is very expensive on the ship, and charged by the minute not by how much you use (like a cellular plan is). You would have to be logged in on both devices continuously. iMessage (if not using FaceTime) should work fine even with the limited bandwidth, but you're looking at $1.50/minute for two devices. :(

 

Oh and if you leave the 3G turned on with your phone, last I heard it was $20/MB at sea. Which, and I mention only for fun, if you used 2GB in a month like AT&T gives you on land, is $40,000!

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Data is very expensive on the ship, and charged by the minute not by how much you use (like a cellular plan is). You would have to be logged in on both devices continuously. iMessage (if not using FaceTime) should work fine even with the limited bandwidth, but you're looking at $1.50/minute for two devices. :(

 

Oh and if you leave the 3G turned on with your phone, last I heard it was $20/MB at sea. Which, and I mention only for fun, if you used 2GB in a month like AT&T gives you on land, is $40,000!

I guess if they charge the message by a bit and not by time it would work great

I always turn data cellular roaming off

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Via AT&T you can text message (and on my iPhone iPad) for $0.50 per message. So you can send texts pretty cheaply and not use the more expensive ship WiFi.

 

Using the phone to call when onboard I believe is $1.95 per min. So we text our family while onboard and call from ports.

 

As to using iMessage texts onboard o keep in touch, you'd have to have your phone on and that means you'd get normal calls in which could be not only distracting but expensive.

 

But using text messages is avail and although iMessages are suppose to be free, I think the $.50 applies

 

Den

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Via AT&T you can text message (and on my iPhone iPad) for $0.50 per message. So you can send texts pretty cheaply and not use the more expensive ship WiFi.

 

Using the phone to call when onboard I believe is $1.95 per min. So we text our family while onboard and call from ports.

 

As to using iMessage texts onboard o keep in touch, you'd have to have your phone on and that means you'd get normal calls in which could be not only distracting but expensive.

 

But using text messages is avail and although iMessages are suppose to be free, I think the $.50 applies

 

Den

 

What is AT & T ? is that like Telus ?

I was asking about using the ship data, and was not thinking that you have to be logged on all the time to use Imessage

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The ship's cellular data has been reported to not work all the time and when it does it has been reported to be extremely slow. Also, if you do not have an international data plan, or if your international data plan does not apply to service on the ship, the the cellular data on board becomes extremely super expensive - the kind of expensive that horror stories are made of.

 

Because of horror stories of those that had surprise bills from cellular data use out of their country, many people just say "turn the phone on airplane mode" but doing so cuts off all cellular services including cellular calls and cellular text messages. If you take a little time to understand the charges and options, and about your phone settings, then there is no reason to turn your phone off nor to disable it by switching it to airplane mode.

 

AT&T is the largest or second largest cellular provider in the USA. Verizon is the other.

 

As far as ship board cellular data, if working, being covered by an international data plan: It is not currently covered by AT&T international data plans but may be under certain Verizon international data plans.

 

The most effective way to use your phone for data on the ship is with the ship's wifi service, rather than the cellular data service. The ship's wifi service is billed by the minute through your on-board account and you must set up an account at the ship's computer cafe and log in with your cell phone or tablet, or laptop, to use their system. The charges, which are the same price as using the ship's computers, is $0.75/minute whenever you are logged on with discounts available if you purchase blocks of prepaid minutes. But even this internet service is very slow compared to speeds you'll see at home and at times service is not available at all. Since all users in effect share a satellite connection the speed of service is best late at night, or early in the morning, when the fewest number of passengers are using the system.

 

The best way to do messaging on board is to use the ship's cellular text messaging rather than some method of using imessage. The cost of this is set, and billed by, your cell phone service provider and the actual rates are set by the provider. For AT&T the at sea text messaging rates have recently increased to $0.50 per outgoing messages with incoming messages charged at your home rate (i.e. free if you have unlimited messaging at home). Cellular phone calls at sea cost $2.50/min on AT&T. However, to further complicate things we were recently on the Silhouette and our cellular service did not work at all with our new AT&T iPhones. See a thread about this here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1752678

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What is AT & T ? is that like Telus ?

I was asking about using the ship data, and was not thinking that you have to be logged on all the time to use Imessage

 

Yes, AT&T is a cellular provider like Telus; I didn't notice your location as Canada until you asked this.

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How does one do this, Larry? I thought iMessage and texts were the same thing?

 

iMessage is unique to Apple products. On iPods and iPads it works only with data. On iPhones it is integrated with the text message app. If you are texting a user of another Apple product with iMessage and both are logged into the internet then it will send the text message through the Apple imessage server. If you are not but are connected to a cellular data network then an iPhone will send it through the cellular text message service. So while they work the same, on the same iPhone app, iMessage requires an internet data connection but text messaging goes through the cellular network and does not use "cellular data" unless the message contains a photo.

 

I don't understand why all this talk of US cellphones keep coming into play

I was writing about data

Other posters have joined this thread with questions similar to yours so I have tried to address both the internet data and cellular aspects. A lot of users who don't fully understand their iPhones and how they work do not understand the differences between cellular data and wi-fi data so I've tried to include info on both and explain the differences a bit.

 

Just to make things clear: The answer to your original question depends on the circumstances. It could be one of three: (1) No; (2) Yes, but extremely expensive; (3) Yes, but not reliably. Which of these three is the case for you on your cruise will depend on your carrier, if you have international data roaming which includes data on the ship, and if the ship's cellular system happens to be working with data at the time. If all are working in your favor then it might work some times, but there may be a lag. Also if the phones involved are iPhones as opposed to iPods then it might revert to text messaging since the iMessage might not be working great even if it is working.

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iMessage is unique to Apple products. On iPods and iPads it works only with data. On iPhones it is integrated with the text message app. If you are texting a user of another Apple product with iMessage and both are logged into the internet then it will send the text message through the Apple imessage server. If you are not but are connected to a cellular data network then an iPhone will send it through the cellular text message service. So while they work the same, on the same iPhone app, iMessage requires an internet data connection but text messaging goes through the cellular network and does not use "cellular data" unless the message contains a photo

 

Thanks Larry. It would seem then if I message my daughter from my iPhone 5 (she also has an iPhone 5) that we wouldn't confront the data issue.

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Thanks Larry. It would seem then if I message my daughter from my iPhone 5 (she also has an iPhone 5) that we wouldn't confront the data issue.

The data vs. cellular issue should be transparent to you. Only difference is that if you happened to be on a wifi at the time then there should be no charge to you from your cellular company for the message if it goes via iMessage, but if you're not then you'll have the international charge because it couldn't go through iMessage.

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I don't understand why all this talk of US cellphones keep coming into play

I was writing about data

 

Greetings

 

Wireless Maritime Service is the provider on most of Celebrity's ships (Eclipse uses OnWaves). Wireless Maritime is owned by ATT. That is why ATT keeps coming up in the thread.

 

Good Sailing

Tom

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Greetings

 

Wireless Maritime Service is the provider on most of Celebrity's ships (Eclipse uses OnWaves). Wireless Maritime is owned by ATT. That is why ATT keeps coming up in the thread.

 

Good Sailing

Tom

I just want to text with my wife since she will be up in Persian Garden and that is not a place for me :D

If they sold Internet package by usage instead of by time that would be great, and probably get less complains if it is slow

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