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Using Verizon cell phone on board


msn123
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Has anyone else noticed that Oceania ships are no longer part of the $40 plan ( 100 minutes, 100 texts and 100 mb). The only alternative when on board is the more expensive pay as you go plan.

 

Wonder why the change was made. Guess what's app and Skype will get a workout!

 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Forums mobile app

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. Guess what's app and Skype will get a workout!

 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Forums mobile app

WhatsApp is all we use for phone calls and text's when on wifi. Though we have "free" wifi on the ship (Riviera next May) it sounds like it's worthless regarding speed and staying connected.

Reminds me, I e-mailed O a week ago or so and asked them in the year 2017 why is this the case on their ship? No surprise, I never got a reply.

 

Cheers,

John

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When wifi is available, we use Xfinity dialer to make phone calls that are treated like local calls made from our home phone (when calling back to US) - a very nice feature.

We don't need to make many calls but occasionally we just need to (like 800 numbers to airlines, etc)

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A few observations and suggestions. I'm currently on Marina and a number of factors contribute to how good WiFi connecitons are,

 

1) Location of cabin. On the walls of the hallway are white boxes, these are WiFi APs (Access Points). The closer your cabin door is to one of these the better your reception.

 

2) Your cabin is a steel box. WiFi will be worst in your cabin. My current cabin is against one of the bulkhead walls and far away from the other AP, hence when my door is closed my connection is extremely weak and unreasonably slow. I prop my door open and my speed is quite acceptable (fast by cruise ship standards). I believe OS, VS, and OCs have APs in their cabins. I didn't have issues last cruise in a OC, but normally book PH's and this time 10028 which having a bulkhead between 10028 and 10026, it blocks the signal from the AP near 10024/26, and the AP near 10032 is much further away and has to penetrate walls of 2 bathrooms. 10028 is now I my never book this cabin again list.

 

3) When you use WiFi. Afternoons on sea days are the worst because everybody on the ship is online, in the case of Marina probably 500+ people competing for that bandwidth. 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM on non-sea days, prior to everyone going to dinner. I find the best time to make calls is 7:00 PM, 30 minutes prior to my dinner reservations, and a good portion of the ship is at dinner and not online. FWIW, I use FaceTime or Skype for those friends who don't speak iOS. Best times to call are early mornings, during dinner, or very late at night; all of which also depends on where in the world you are traveling and what time it is for those to whom you are calling.

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When wifi is available, we use Xfinity dialer to make phone calls that are treated like local calls made from our home phone (when calling back to US) - a very nice feature.

We don't need to make many calls but occasionally we just need to (like 800 numbers to airlines, etc)

 

Thank you so much!!! Reading this I immediately checked and it's the Xfinity Connect app which I have, but never realized I could use it this way. Evidently you can even answer your home phone within the app!!! I won't be doing that, but the texting feature is invaluable and the ability to call is definitely a plus. Thank you so much for mentioning it!

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A few observations and suggestions. I'm currently on Marina and a number of factors contribute to how good WiFi connecitons are,

 

1) Location of cabin. On the walls of the hallway are white boxes, these are WiFi APs (Access Points). The closer your cabin door is to one of these the better your reception.

 

2) Your cabin is a steel box. WiFi will be worst in your cabin. My current cabin is against one of the bulkhead walls and far away from the other AP, hence when my door is closed my connection is extremely weak and unreasonably slow. I prop my door open and my speed is quite acceptable (fast by cruise ship standards). I believe OS, VS, and OCs have APs in their cabins. I didn't have issues last cruise in a OC, but normally book PH's and this time 10028 which having a bulkhead between 10028 and 10026, it blocks the signal from the AP near 10024/26, and the AP near 10032 is much further away and has to penetrate walls of 2 bathrooms. 10028 is now I my never book this cabin again list.

 

3) When you use WiFi. Afternoons on sea days are the worst because everybody on the ship is online, in the case of Marina probably 500+ people competing for that bandwidth. 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM on non-sea days, prior to everyone going to dinner. I find the best time to make calls is 7:00 PM, 30 minutes prior to my dinner reservations, and a good portion of the ship is at dinner and not online. FWIW, I use FaceTime or Skype for those friends who don't speak iOS. Best times to call are early mornings, during dinner, or very late at night; all of which also depends on where in the world you are traveling and what time it is for those to whom you are calling.

Thank you for your detailed information. Much appreciated!:)

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Yes, indeed, very helpful. I've not had the problems with internet speed that so many people fulminate about but it may be because most of our recent cruises have been on Marina where except for one time in a PH we were in Vistas or Oceania suites. I didn't have such a noticeable problem when we were in the PH but perhaps we were conveniently close to the Wifi Access Points you mentioned.

 

I tend to go online to download my mail, then go offline to prepare any answers. I don't do much browsing on the internet on board unless there is a real need to do so, and generally there is not.

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1) Location of cabin. On the walls of the hallway are white boxes, these are WiFi APs (Access Points). The closer your cabin door is to one of these the better your reception.

 

2) Your cabin is a steel box. WiFi will be worst in your cabin. My current cabin is against one of the bulkhead walls and far away from the other AP, hence when my door is closed my connection is extremely weak and unreasonably slow. I prop my door open and my speed is quite acceptable (fast by cruise ship standards). I believe OS, VS, and OCs have APs in their cabins. I didn't have issues last cruise in a OC, but normally book PH's and this time 10028 which having a bulkhead between 10028 and 10026, it blocks the signal from the AP near 10024/26, and the AP near 10032 is much further away and has to penetrate walls of 2 bathrooms. 10028 is now I my never book this cabin again list.

.

 

We've been in a concierge cabin which had the white box. Our cabin was all the way aft. I wouldn't say the box made much difference.

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We've been in a concierge cabin which had the white box. Our cabin was all the way aft. I wouldn't say the box made much difference.
Was your experience after last summer's Internet infrastructure upgrade? I found that the internet speed and connectivity was much better after the upgrade. Also, how did you your Wifi performance compare with your cabin door open? Attempting to use Wifi in steel encased cabins is similar to trying using Wifi or mobile phones in elevators,

 

I work for a software company and telecommute, so YES I work when I'm on vacation. BUT, I get to take as much vacation as I like, which ends up being 3-4 months a year, so a nice trade off. The irony to all this is that our area of expertise is IT Performance Management and Capacity Planning. We monitor IT infrastructure resource utilization and related performance, including network performance.

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