serialcruiser48

I'm on the Liberty and for each drink my card is swiped in the D lounge. I was told RCL wants to see how much this program is actually costing them. I thought they already knew, but this time they seem to want more accurate data.

Obviously the bean counters have the ear of those who control this program. I did notice the wash cloths were much thinner than before.

I just today had another meeting with the IT Manager (3 stripe, high level) to talk about IPSec VPN being blocked. He said to his knowledge VPN was not blocked, so I used to my iPad Pro to prove its failure. He took down the information and will get back to me. I ask once again if the Liberty is going to get O3b in the future and he said "no". If anyone cruising the Liberty is expecting true Voom let me say it's not happening. I also asked if the Indy was getting Voom he was under the impression it's not.

Currently on the Liberty and was on it Feb, I be back in June so I like the Liberty just fine. Good food and entertainment. Once you have 80 PTS you become Diamond and then have free drinks happy hour in a private lounge for 3 1/2 hours every night. I just came off the Westerdam 30 day S.Pacific cruise and their happy hour was only an hour and you still had to pay something for the second drink. This is the only cruise line offering a private lounge to non suite travelersand and 80 PTS is not that much.

Guess he does not read cruise critic. He probably would have said "Hi".

....and that's the way to confirm you have old crappy Internet.

 

Harris - old Internet

 

O3B - new Internet

 

But, even with O3B, you may have periodic issues when performance lags.

Probable true, But using the "ping" app and getting a low ping rate in my mind is the best way to confirm O3b.

RadioRob posted in another thread that you could also use a somewhat more obvious way to tell if you have real VOOM - see the ISP listed when you go to http://whatismyipaddress.com/ - if it's O3B, then you likely have real VOOM.

On the Liberty it shows "Harris Caprock comm".

That's very sad. Could you still run a traceroute of 8.8.8.8 for us?

Here it is.

http://http://pictures.cruisecritic.com/showphoto.php?photo=38038&cat=523

As mentioned earlier, I spoke with the IT Manager and he told me they aren't going to switch to O3b on the Liberty. So, high sat it is.

Also, pinging Googles DNS (8.8.8.8) has an average ping rate of 682 ms. Loosing 2 packets out of 130. Internet seems better today than yesterday since the weather is beautiful and people are outside.

Isn't the independence doing a TA? It won't have voom speeds. On the RCCL 'Life on board' page it states voom is only caribbean, med, and asia. Then specifically state no voom on TA or repositioning cruises.

 

One thing I have a question about is when you keep stating "true Voom," what exactly are you using as a reference point? I haven't seen anything from RCCL guaranteeing any particular bandwidth or latency with Voom. It says "fastest internet at sea" or "high speed" and streaming. I'm just curious about where you've gotten this sub 300ms reference point.

 

The O3b latency and throughput page states their 3rd party evaluated speed is 150ms using medium earth orbit satellites. The same page has this statement. "It took O3b six seconds to load an Internet page, for example, while it took a terrestrial Internet link four seconds and the GEO VSAT connection ten seconds."

High orbit satellite ping rate is 638 ms under ideal conditions, but typically on a cruise ship add router and distribution delays and you see 700-1100 ms ping rates. O3b low orbit satellite on a cruise ship is less than 300 ms with the router and distribution delay. That's the reason for low orbit satellite in the first place, the signal does not have as far to travel hence the lower ping rate.

That's why I mentioned ping times in my post. I don't remember exactly what they were, but I'm thinking around 300ms.

Well, hopefully a tech savvy person on the Indy can confirm a low ping rate. I will ask the Concierge host to email the Concierge host on the Indy and find out.

I now have the surf + stream package and I am able to stream Netflix on the Liberty. I woke early and thought it would be a good time to test streaming, so it does work for now. When everyone wakes and starts to use wifi, it may not. High orbit satellite is very limited in its bandwidth.

What we have for Internet service is a pig with lipstick and not true Voom, but it's pricing is much better than the old by the minute pricing. Web pages still take longer to load and that will not change. Any service you use requiring low latency will fail.

This is confusing to me, as we have seen speed tests from Indy with ping times that indicate lower earth orbit satellites.:confused:

Speed is not the deciding factor, it's the ping rate. High orbit satellite latency is nearly fixed because the signal has to travel much higher up (>22,000 miles) and back down to earth. The ping rate is going to be about 638 ms under ideal conditions.

The truth about Voom.

I met with a three stripe IT manager on the Liberty and was told only ships built in 2010 or later plus the Enchantment and Freedom will have the O3b service true Voom. Everyone else, it's the high orbit satellite. So, as of now there it is.

Also, when I purchased the Voom package from the cruise planner, it was the surf package (garbage). Surf and stream was not mentioned or offered. So, If you want the surf and stream you need to wait until you board and then get the surf and stream package. I immediately upgraded to the best package and report on its performance later in the cruise.

Went on a recent Carnival cruise. Got their premier Internet package. Was able to connect VPN. YES!! After that, press a key and wait average 5-15 seconds before something come back. It takes me an hour to do what usually 10 minutes. Booked Liberty December 2016 based on VOOM ads on Cruise Critics. Now I am not so sure.

If any know for sure, please share. Thanks!!!! :(

I met with the Hotel Director on the Liberty and he is supposed to get me more information about the Liberty's (lack of) Voom. I've also got the Diamonds Concierge host happily involved and he emailed the folks in the IT dept.

Try loading a graphic heavy page such as one of the photo review threads here on cruise critic with a 56K connection and you'll see how bandwidth comes into play.

 

Both latency and bandwidth are important. However, I will take a high bandwidth/high latency connection over a low bandwidth/low latency connection every single time if I am moving data. (voice and chat - not so much)

 

 

 

The Ob3 pages say they are guaranteeing 150ms latency but that is just between them and the client. There are a lot of other factors at play though. I wouldn't say it is a terrible test as it will probably give you a good idea but it is not an exact test.

 

Also, pinging 8.8.8.8 might be a better destination to test with

I just spent 30 days in the South Pacific and they probably get their service from O3b. In Moorea for example, their (i.e. Vodafone 3G) ping rates were 351-435. I doubt they have an underwater cable to Hawaii.

Yes, pinging googles public DNS is also good.

While ping times are important, so is download speed for some uses. We have seen reports of low ping times (confirming VOOM) but download speeds well below 1MBs. Or you could have real VOOM confirmed on the ship but you go on northern TA (like Iceland) and performance will suck (since there's no O3B service that far north).

Yes, O3b only works in the Med and Caribbean. Northern and Southern Hemispheres are excluded in their current offerings. I'm sure the cruises to Alaska are unable to provide true Voom for the entire voyage. On true Voom ships the router throttles bandwidth, hence the "Surf". Not throttled, "surf and stream". When I was on the Allure my download was 25 Mbps, obviously unthrottled.

Not exactly. :)

 

Bandwidth is more important in regards to the overall loading speed of modern web pages. Low latency is more important when it comes to video, voice, and streaming.

 

As you mentioned, this is by O3b. good reading here: http://www.o3bnetworks.com/o3bmaritime/

Yes exactly, good web page performance is totally dependent on low latency. Bandwidth is almost secondary, but true Voom by default comes with 25 Mbps download. However I digress, this thread is about testing for true Voom and its a binary result. Approx 300 ms you have true Voom, More than 500 ms and you have garbage.

Interesting, two questions for you. First which ship were you on. Second did you have "Voom Surf", or "Voom Surf and Stream"

 

I'm curious if the hardware is on the ship just not activated yet. This would make sense considering the level of effort required for network deployments. Especially on a ship.

 

Just from reading the literature it sounds like Voom Surf could very well be using High Orbit satellites, while Voom Surf and Stream is using Low Orbit Satellites. Doing this is obviously more work for the networking team. But considering the timing for these roll outs they maybe doing that to keep congestion off of Surf and Stream.

I am totally addicted to the Internet so I will always opt for the best possible package. I cruise often, but currently on the Liberty.

It's all in the marketing if you don't actually know what is being sold. Example, before boarding the Liberty the cruise planner was advertising Voom service for 30% off, so i purchased it. When I got to my cabin there was the Voom access code in my mail slot. The very first thing I did was test for Voom and discovered it was not true Voom.

To test for Voom you need to download an app called "Ping". Open "ping" and ping an address like console.worldoftanks.com and if the ping rate is ~300 then you have true Voom. If it's more than 600 ms then you have high orbit satellite (i.e. Garbage).

Here are the test results from the Liberty.

http://http://pictures.cruisecritic.com/showphoto.php?photo=38030&cat=523

These ping rates are worse than when I was on the ship in Feb, but the results confirm the absence of true Voom Internet.

As of now ships have only two options for satellite. One is the old technology called high orbit satellite and the other is low orbit satellite. Low orbit satellite is only provided a company called O3b and is the only true Voom. Their ping rates are typically under 300 ms so your web page fetches are going to be similar to your Internet at home.

Low ping rates are important for web page performance. The higher the ping rates, the longer you have to wait for your web page to load. Maybe up to 2 minutes typically.

Seems it all in the marketing of Internet these days, Xcelerate on Celebrity still uses the old tech. I was on the Westerdam trying to print out my "Set sail Pass" for this cruise and it took 45 minutes. Maybe HA was throttling RCL, who knows.

So know the true Voom.

I had the Southampton booked and cancelled it because I thought this ship was not going to have Voom. Once Voom is confirmed, I may need to call my travel agent.

To test for Voom you need to download an app called "Ping". Then you ping an address (i.e. console.worldoftanks.com) and if it's ~300 ms then you have true Voom. If it's more than 400 ms, then you only have have the usual high orbit satellite garbage. Please post the ping rate.

onboard solstice, we just got xcelerate 634 ms ping and .5 down and .3 up... that's right 0.5 and 0.3, but it's fast enough to be usable. I just run adblock and turn off all flash/java/ and image downloading and you can work.

I'm currently on the Liberty of the Seas and this ship is supposed to have Voom which it does not. My results are about the same and in my book sucks. I'll talk to the Concierge Host and ask him to find out when Voom will be ready.

Thought wg.net looked familiar. WOT's fan here. Not a big fan of blitz.

 

Sounds like you know your IT. I also work in IT. Not to be rude, but I would never expect speed on a cruise ship to be up to snuff for playing online games.

I play WOT on Xbox 360, Xbox one , Ps4 and Blitz. Guess you can say I'm hooked on WOT.

I founded Dicount Internet Inc. Of Texas in '96. Back in Slackware Linux days. Later moved to Redhat. Now I cruise and rave about bad Internet.

Speed on the Aulure of the Seas was 276ms, 25 mbps down. Don't remember the up, but it was just like being at home. The real Voom.

Before I purchased this cruise I searched if Voom was on the Liberty and there were no test reports even though the VOOM PACKAGE WAS OFFERED ON MY CRUISE PLANNER.

Here they are THE SAD RESULTS;

Ping rate 723-822 ms. This is the most important component of web page performance. Expect to wait several minutes for your web pages to load.

Download .3 Mbps

Upload .28 Mbps

Major bummer!

Just did a speed test on my surf package while sitting in the solarium on the Independence - we're northeast of St Maarten heading for Southampton.

 

I got:

 

ping - 302ms

Download - 0.52mbps

Upload - 0.26mbps

 

I have zero clue how to interpret that but there's the data! :)

This has to be O3b, else the ping rates would be >500 ms. The ping rate is more important than bandwidth to determine low orbit satellite.

Voom on Rhapsody? Nope, not according to a good friend who is currently on the ship. He said and I quote "Internet sucks and it's expensive". Rhapsody is one of my favorite ships and hopefully this is fixed soon.