Concern over the internet speed.

[gandolfcruiser]

I'm glad this information is here. I thought I had done my due diligence for this TA that I am already on. Once I got here the pricing changed (higher ... much higher) and then some have said it might be 3 days mid-atlantic with absolutely no connection. Well, I figured out how to work around the pricing... but was stumped on the 3 days no connection when I have an obligation to be 'present' at least every 36 hours. So, I will plan my worst connectivity time to be working in the wee hours of the night when all are sleeping. I have checked available internet connections and I do see that the ship has a 2nd network so I am not sharing with the ship's business transmissions.

 

 

Internet "speed" ought to be split out into two distinct parameters: bandwidth (how many bytes can arrive per second) and latency (how long it takes those bytes to travel from origin server to destination netbook, or vice versa). Because the at-sea link is satellite based, your traffic has to go up to a satellite and then back to the ground, and that applies in both directions (getting a form involves all of the packets that make up the form, plus several acknowledgements back to the server along the way). It can be as bad as 250ms each way if it's using geosynchronous satellites (the reason that your home DirecTV/Dish antenna gets aimed is because the satellites orbit far enough away that they don't appear to move in the sky, but that's 22,300 miles up). Home internet connections are probably on the order of 1-4ms to nearby sites and perhaps 40-65ms if you try to access something across the US from your home.

 

All of that is a long-winded way of saying that you can expect high latency aboard the ship. This would make interactive stuff absolutely painful, such as online gaming - you'd get shot to smithereens long before you could see the enemy and shoot back. However, once a particular packet stream gets going, it can probably achieve a reasonable bandwidth. So, things like getting the form may be a little slow to start, but after it's flowing it shouldn't take long, and the same in reverse.

[Krazy Kruizers]

I'm glad this information is here. I thought I had done my due diligence for this TA that I am already on. Once I got here the pricing changed (higher ... much higher) and then some have said it might be 3 days mid-atlantic with absolutely no connection. Well, I figured out how to work around the pricing... but was stumped on the 3 days no connection when I have an obligation to be 'present' at least every 36 hours. So, I will plan my worst connectivity time to be working in the wee hours of the night when all are sleeping. I have checked available internet connections and I do see that the ship has a 2nd network so I am not sharing with the ship's business transmissions.

 

What ship are you on?

[Underwatr]

You're not on the same WiFi network as the crew but you may be sharing the available satellite bandwidth between the ship and the world.

 

I never had a period without connectivity anywhere near 3 days, if at all, during my transatlantic.