WiFi

[POA1]

there is option for unlimited internet on my phone sim card.

At sea, you will need to use the ship's Satellite Internet. You can use your cell phone data in port as long as your plan has data in the countries you're visiting. For tethering or hotspot, your international data plan needs to support mobile wireless hotspot capability. It's often abbreviated something like MWHS on the feature sheet.

 

Right now, the US carrier with the best options in this arena is T-Mobile, but you are still looking at an additional $25 for one week and 200MB 3G data. The cellular market is constant flux, so check with your carrier.

 

Once you are at sea, figure that you will be using the ship's Internet. You can use the ship's cell phone service if you wish, but check the prices with your carrier. You will probably find the cellular at sea data to be an extremely expensive option. - And it will be a little slower than the ship's wifi. (Think molasses on a winter's day versus sunny, springtime molasses.)

[Hlitner]

One also needs to understand the difference between CDMA and GSM. For example, phones that are purchased for Verizon and Sprint (like iPhones) are CDMA phones and many do not have duel capability for GSM systems. In order to function in Europe (and much of the world) a phone must be GSM capable (ATT and T-Mobile fits this requirement. So if you own a CDMA phone, no Sim or extra fee is going to allow it to work in Europe.

 

Hank

[CaveDiving]

...And it will be a little slower than the ship's wifi. (Think molasses on a winter's day versus sunny, springtime molasses.)

 

That is a terrific exemplification. The verbal picture is just perfect.

 

Scott & Karen

[cbr663]

I'm planning cruise Iberian explorer 14 days with ms Rotterdam on the 13th of September 2014 and have plenty of questions (first cruise in my life), but most important is internet. :D

 

Please understand that the ship's primary goal is to provide a secure and reliable line for the day to day running of the ship and not for its passengers enjoyment. A ship's internet is limited to bandwidth provided by satellite. A ship's internet speed and pricing is structured to discourage a large number of passengers from using it and from consuming large amounts of bandwidth.

[sail7seas]

Please understand that the ship's primary goal is to provide a secure and reliable line for the day to day running of the ship and not for its passengers enjoyment. A ship's internet is limited to bandwidth provided by satellite. A ship's internet speed and pricing is structured to discourage a large number of passengers from using it and from consuming large amounts of bandwidth.

 

 

 

That is why the block Skype and Facetime etc

 

 

[POA1]

That is why the block Skype and Facetime etc

 

 

Skype is notoriously hard to block. It fails back to Port 80 (regular HTTP, which is what web pages use.) The killer for Skype is the satellite latency which is the delay introduced as the packets of data go up to the satellite and back down to the earth station on the other end. For FaceTime, there just isn't the bandwidth. Also the latency is a factor as well.

 

That's not to say that the ship doesn't actively try to block Skype. They can and do block as many of the Skype servers as possible.

Edited June 18, 2014 by POA1