Internet Observations - Solstice in Alaska

[SetU2]

So the ship has been updated to Xcelerate. The unlimited cost for the Seattle RT cruises in Alaska will be $140. The WiFi connection itself on the ship was really quite good. I know somebody will tell you it was terrible but let's not forget, it is a wireless signal ad there could be pockets that are bad and, it could just be that persons computer too. I replaced the DNS provided by the Celebrity routers with others I prefer to use. One is a private server I use ad the other a for fee server I use for my clients. The speeds I observed for the Internet itself, and I tested several dozen times, showed some patterns that I think I can explain. The ping times generally stayed in the 600-900 millisecond range. No surprise there for satellite connections. The speed ranged .36mbps to 11.15mbps for downloads and from .34mbps to 15.93mbps upload speed. The better speeds were on the first couple of days and just no improving as we get nearer to Victoria again. I can't pinpoint the latitude at which the Internet seemed to have gotten worse/better but I'd estimate it to be around 50-52 degrees north.

 

North of that you could still get some good connections but they would often be more like in the 4mbps range and were, as always, dependent on other traffic. The good part about this was when north of that you are visiting ports and Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway all have good cellular service. Once we went into the glacial arms, Internet access was dead so expect that.

 

Peak times were tough to pinpoint but seemed much worse on the 2nd full sea day. Early this morning, I was able to get 3.11mbps but most of the day it has been around 35-55mbs. Usable but agonizingly slow to get work done. Ok for email without attachments. I suspect the sea days are worse because of the streaming of videos. The first is better because you are further south. I suppose they could just have sold more internet packages too, but I'd bet money on much of the performance being from the way it's used.

 

Overall, I was able to get some work done, more than enough to cover the cost of the Internet. If you are willing to use it in off hours it really isn't terrible. I would however classify it as Not Yet Ready for Primetime!

Edited May 19, 2016 by SetU2

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

So the ship has been updated to Xcelerate. The unlimited cost for the Seattle RT cruises in Alaska will be $140. The WiFi connection itself on the ship was really quite good. I know somebody will tell you it was terrible but let's not forget, it is a wireless signal ad there could be pockets that are bad and, it could just be that persons computer too. I replaced the DNS provided by the Celebrity routers with others I prefer to use. One is a private server I use ad the other a for fee server I use for my clients. The speeds I observed for the Internet itself, and I tested several dozen times, showed some patterns that I think I can explain. The ping times generally stayed in the 600-900 millisecond range. No surprise there for satellite connections. The speed ranged .36mbps to 11.15mbps for downloads and from .34mbps to 15.93mbps upload speed. The better speeds were on the first couple of days and just no improving as we get nearer to Victoria again. I can't pinpoint the latitude at which the Internet seemed to have gotten worse/better but I'd estimate it to be around 50-52 degrees north.

 

North of that you could still get some good connections but they would often be more like in the 4mbps range and were, as always, dependent on other traffic. The good part about this was when north of that you are visiting ports and Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway all have good cellular service. Once we went into the glacial arms, Internet access was dead so expect that.

 

Peak times were tough to pinpoint but seemed much worse on the 2nd full sea day. Early this morning, I was able to get 3.11mbps but most of the day it has been around 35-55mbs. Usable but agonizingly slow to get work done. Ok for email without attachments. I suspect the sea days are worse because of the streaming of videos. The first is better because you are further south. I suppose they could just have sold more internet packages too, but I'd bet money on much of the performance being from the way it's used.

 

Overall, I was able to get some work done, more than enough to cover the cost of the Internet. If you are willing to use it in off hours it really isn't terrible. I would however classify it as Not Yet Ready for Primetime!

 

I'm glad to hear that they upped their game - I knew that Xcelerate was in the works, but was not sure of the deployment schedule. Not sure why, being under the same corporate umbrella, they can't have something more like VOOM, which we just enjoyed last week on the Allure. Steady download speeds north of 30 Mbps. We could easily stream video, though I only really used it to stream Pandora.

 

With VOOM I was able to easily use the wifi calling feature on my new S7 Edge - likely thanks to the relatively low ping. It was crystal clear... love that!

 

I was able to use the "regular" wifi on the Equinox in March to BARELY stream Pandora, and even then it would cut out.

 

Looking forward to the improved speeds on the Solstice in August!

 

Here's a screenshot from my phone from last week (a very average reading). Granted, the upload is crawling, but that's OK with me... if I had to choose one over the other!

 

 

Tom

[Don't spammy]

If I could add my experience from Solstice last week, I thought the speeds were fine. I used my wifi mainly with my smartphone and sometimes switch to an iPad once or twice along the voyage. I found that almost daily I would see the wifi as connected, but I had become logged out. Once I got the hang of it, it was no trouble after an easy log back in.