Internet on Getaway

[FLcruiser2011]

On the transatlantic last October on Epic, the internet was a disaster -- very slow when it worked at all, and blocking cloud sites like dropbox which I use to keep in touch with my office.

 

Anyone able to provide an update on the transatlantic on Getaway? I am hoping to try it soon, but can't risk another internet disaster.

 

Thanks.

[clyde3]

I thought it was a little faster than usual but with so few people on the ship, I only saw 3 or 4 people at a time in the internet cafe.

[time2cruise1]

As pointed out with so few onboard the performance was very good. Used it at least a couple times a day and never had any problems connecting from my cabin.

Edited February 2, 2014 by time2cruise1

[VideoTech]

Internet service on ships is going to be slow. There's simply no way around it. You're using the ship's satellite communications system to communicate with shore based internet servers. Bandwidth and speed are limited by the equipment.

 

While I can't speak for the TA, I've been on many other NCL cruises and never had any trouble using web-based emails systems like Gmail. Performance was adequate. I have never tried to use Dropbox from a ship, but you should be able to use the Dropbox website if the Dropbox folders in your operating system don't work for some reason.

 

I do know that they block certain ports, such as those used for Skype and video streaming.

[barnacle_boy]

New equipment to dramatically boost satellite internet speeds has been in the works for years. MTN and NCL recently announced that they had installed the new iDirect X7 satellite modem on Breakaway. It would not be entirely surprising if the same technology found its way onto Getaway. They claim to get up to 100mbps, but those sorts of speeds won't be realized until MTN's Nexus network, dependent on new Intelsat Epic satellites scheduled for launch in 2015, is up and running. From next year onwards, if all works well, there shouldn't be much, if any, noticeable difference in connection speed between land and sea.

[bakerintn]

its NCL's system, so they get to block whatever they want. I would think that Dropbox would be one of those sites, since large files are one of the selling points of Dropbox vs emailing them. Same with Google Drive and similar cloud file storage sites. No way of knowing in advance unless a recent cruiser chimes in with their experience.

[time2cruise1]

New equipment to dramatically boost satellite internet speeds has been in the works for years. MTN and NCL recently announced that they had installed the new iDirect X7 satellite modem on Breakaway. It would not be entirely surprising if the same technology found its way onto Getaway. They claim to get up to 100mbps, but those sorts of speeds won't be realized until MTN's Nexus network, dependent on new Intelsat Epic satellites scheduled for launch in 2015, is up and running. From next year onwards, if all works well, there shouldn't be much, if any, noticeable difference in connection speed between land and sea.

 

If you look at your onboard usage reports it shows minutes and MBs. I would not be surprised once the new 100MB services are deployed they will move from minutes to MB based billing. Just being connected has no real cost to MTN it is the bandwidth usage. Time will tell