Viber Question

[Fairway Cruiser]

Does anyone know if the new "Viber" app that allows for "free" cell calls from anywhere in the world work on the Carnival ships "cellular at sea" service?

 

It is a "web based" app/service....so I know there is a charge for internet on the ship. But, will "cellular at sea" allow this app to work for free?

[CatlinSTJ]

Theoretically, you would be able to use it with just the wifi. The connection on the ship, however, would probably not be fast enough or steady enough to support this kind of app. Not to mention that you would most likely not save money buying the Internet service onboard.

 

 

Next cruise: Carnival Breeze June 2014

[MzMelissa26]

You can definitely take advantage of the free wifi and use it with viber at the ports of call

[MzMelissa26]

I've always used Grooveip in conjuction with Google voice for overseas calls

[BallFour4]

The bandwidths required for that aren't met aboard the ship. You'd also need to establish your account with the internet service provided and pay that rate.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[HeyBud]

[bumping an old thread because I think it deserves an update]

 

First of all, the "Cellular at Sea" cell service is billed by your carrier like international roaming, so if you have a US carrier, chances are the data rates are too expensive to be used except in very limited amounts. For instance, w/o an international plan, my Verizon plan charges $2/MB, which is about 200 times more expensive than my domestic rate (4GB for $40). With the $40/month international plan, you only get 100MB of roaming data included, after that you pay $0.25 per MB. So for most people using cellular data while on board is not an option (my wife's aunt refused to follow our instructions to not watch TV shows on her iPhone, and racked up a $500 bill in less than two hours, before AT&T cut off both her international and domestic cellular data, figuring she didn't know what she was doing).

 

I can't say for certain that Viber calls would work with the Premium WiFi plan since I didn't try it, but I'm pretty confident that it would not work with the Social and Value plans. If it works at all, it most likely requires the Premium plan. The Premium plan does support Skype, and Viber calls use less bandwidth than Skype calls, so if Viber calls don't work, it's not a bandwidth limitation, it's a usage policy limitation. I did use Viber chat to keep in touch with our pet sitter during a recent cruise, and found that I needed to upgrade from the Social plan to the Value plan in order for Viber chat messages to get through.

[oneillcd73]

My wife was able to make voice calls through Facebook messenger last week on the Magic

[HeyBud]

What WiFi plan was required for your Facebook Messenger calls to work?

[AdrenalineRush]

You can just use the $5 a day $25 a cruise social plan to access all of Facebooks features including voice calls.

[Dork42775]

I used the $25 length of cruise social plan in August on the Breeze and even though the calling feature on facebook messenger & Viber worked i would not recommend it. There was so much lag it was awful and i would just go to regular facebook text messaging instead. It will will but not very well.

[ohiogymrat]

I used the $25 length of cruise social plan in August on the Breeze and even though the calling feature on facebook messenger & Viber worked i would not recommend it. There was so much lag it was awful and i would just go to regular facebook text messaging instead. It will will but not very well.

 

Yes, you will have to deal with latency.

 

If its just a quick call home to check on things its bearable, but I wouldn't suggest it for people trying to conduct business.

[HeyBud]

Good point, the extra latency because of the satellite link makes two-way voice much worse.