Ocean Medallion internet in Europe...poor

[whatcruiseisnext]

On the Regal transatlantic crossing the new “fast” Internet was non-existent. Apparently they didn’t test it out for connections outside the USA and Caribbean. After about 3 days from leaving the US internet coverage was spotty at best and you were constantly being bumped out so had to sign in frequently.... if you could get on at all. Sometimes the internet would be totally down for hours at a time. The problem is so pronounced that multiple times the Captain apologized overhead.

 

The purpose of this post is to advise those of you traveling in Europe on the Regal this season that if you don’t get the free internet.... don’t bother buying it. It will be an exercise in frustration as well as wasted money unless they figure out how to improve connectivity over here.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[antsp]

After my experience of the internet on the Crowns TA last week I think you would be mad to buy any internet. It was almost unusable. I upgraded at sign in to add 200 mins to my free 250, it was impossible to use them. The did refund my $40

[msmoger]

At this point I wouldn't compare the internet on the Crown (the older technology) with the Regal.

 

Having said that, although it is certainly disappointing that the service during the TA is bad, especially if you paid for it, I would wait to see what the service is like once you're no longer in the middle of the ocean.

 

It's hard to believe the folks responsible for upgrading the internet didn't take this into consideration when they designed the system, but that's another topic.

[h3rjp]

Internet is always patchy on transatlantic cruises. They don’t position the kind of fast internet beaming satellites above miles of open ocean for the occasional passing ship.

 

The fast internet works fine on a ship in Europe; I sailed on a sister carnival brand recently with fast internet and it was just as good as in the Caribbean. However they might need to adjust the equipment once in a new location to set it up correctly.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[peety3]

Internet is always patchy on transatlantic cruises. They don’t position the kind of fast internet beaming satellites above miles of open ocean for the occasional passing ship.

They don't position the satellites at all. Current satellite internet technology uses geosynchronous-orbit satellites, 22,300 miles up. The Iridium satellite constellation (for satellite phones) only supports extremely limited data services, just enough for satellite phones to do basic texting. It's not until another service puts an estimated 4,000 satellites into low-earth orbit that latencies will decrease. However, at that altitude, there is no "position a satellite"; each one orbits every 90 minutes, so your signal is constantly handed off to different satellites every several minutes, and it's possible if not likely that there are times where your traffic goes up to one satellite, OVER to another (and maybe a few times to another...) before then heading down to land, or vice versa.

[whatcruiseisnext]

At this point I wouldn't compare the internet on the Crown (the older technology) with the Regal.

 

 

 

Having said that, although it is certainly disappointing that the service during the TA is bad, especially if you paid for it, I would wait to see what the service is like once you're no longer in the middle of the ocean.

 

 

 

It's hard to believe the folks responsible for upgrading the internet didn't take this into consideration when they designed the system, but that's another topic.

 

 

 

We haven’t been in the “middle of the ocean” since April 22. We have now completed all our ports, have a sea day tomorrow and the TA portion of the cruise ends on Sunday the 29th.

 

Actually the Internet was slow and unreliable “in the middle of the ocean” but actually worked better than it does since we have arrived in Europe.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[whatcruiseisnext]

Internet is always patchy on transatlantic cruises. They don’t position the kind of fast internet beaming satellites above miles of open ocean for the occasional passing ship.

 

The fast internet works fine on a ship in Europe; I sailed on a sister carnival brand recently with fast internet and it was just as good as in the Caribbean. However they might need to adjust the equipment once in a new location to set it up correctly.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

 

 

Can’t say anything about Carnival because I have no experience with their ship in Europe BUT the “fast” internet on the Regal does NOT work fine in Europe! The Captain himself has stated there are problems. Hopefully they can get them fixed for the Medallion.net soon for upcoming cruises.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[bobby3334]

Ditto from the Regal. Satellite in Europe much worse and sometimes non existent. Yet another problem with the *****....May be time to give up. Were sold a bill of goods by a really good salesman who was able to sell them many uninvented items. Mike

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Belle]

Bad internet is not because in Europe, always has worked there.

It's because of new setup and new packages. Internet didn't

work on the Grand in Mexico and Hawaii. When on the

Grand and Emerald (South Pacific) worked great before

the went to new packages. In fact last time on the Grand before new setup

it was the fastest it had ever been. Then they ruin it. Internet manager

didn't like it either. Everyone complained to him. He couldn't do anything.

PRINCESS has to fix it!

[cruisequeen4ever]

Oh no! Hope they can get that solved soon because people aren’t going to be happy all summer if it continues!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[gkacky]

Good to know. My husband must always do some work on our cruises. It has always been slow, but usable, overseas. Have a few months to reconsider our cruise before final payment.

[DrivesLikeMario]

They don't position the satellites at all. Current satellite internet technology uses geosynchronous-orbit satellites, 22,300 miles up. The Iridium satellite constellation (for satellite phones) only supports extremely limited data services, just enough for satellite phones to do basic texting. It's not until another service puts an estimated 4,000 satellites into low-earth orbit that latencies will decrease. However, at that altitude, there is no "position a satellite"; each one orbits every 90 minutes, so your signal is constantly handed off to different satellites every several minutes, and it's possible if not likely that there are times where your traffic goes up to one satellite, OVER to another (and maybe a few times to another...) before then heading down to land, or vice versa.

That definitely explains it, thanks. Always wondered what the problem was in the North Atlantic (or the Med., or the wide open ocean anywhere for that matter).

[satxdiver]

Internet service on ships is entirely dependent on what satellite services are available and which ones Princess is subscribed. Satellite coverage in the middle of the ocean will always be spotty because no satellite company wants to put up an expensive satellite for a few ships at any given time. We have all become accustomed to the land service and expect it when on a moving ship at sea. It is not the same nor will it be anytime in the near future. Peety3 had an excellent post about how internet access at sea works.

[whatcruiseisnext]

Internet service on ships is entirely dependent on what satellite services are available and which ones Princess is subscribed. Satellite coverage in the middle of the ocean will always be spotty because no satellite company wants to put up an expensive satellite for a few ships at any given time. We have all become accustomed to the land service and expect it when on a moving ship at sea. It is not the same nor will it be anytime in the near future. Peety3 had an excellent post about how internet access at sea works.

 

 

 

All of this is true BUT we were told on the Regal crossing that the problem lies within the Mediallion.net.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Lynniepoo]

I posted on another board as well, but we have a Northern Europe cruise in July and I called Princess about internet issues, because I need to have some access to work while on board. They said no one had reported any issues with the internet. Final payment will be happening any day now, and I'm not sure what we'll do (but we better decide quick!)

[peety3]

I posted on another board as well, but we have a Northern Europe cruise in July and I called Princess about internet issues, because I need to have some access to work while on board. They said no one had reported any issues with the internet. Final payment will be happening any day now, and I'm not sure what we'll do (but we better decide quick!)

As I said above, the technology does not exist to fix the latency problem, only the bandwidth problem. If your need to work is in any way interactive, expect a poor experience.

 

For those not familiar, imagine trying to go from Philadelphia to Manhattan, and today's roads are what you have for on-ship Internet. Now, imagine they built a 30-lane highway with "perfect" entrance/exit ramps in Philly and in Manhattan, but nothing in between, and that the highway is 240 miles long. If you take the new highway, it'll take you ~4 hours to get there but you can pretty much guarantee there's enough room for any/every car that wants to make the trip. That's what bandwidth upgrades do for ship Internet: more capacity, but there's no way around taking the long route, because the satellites are that far "up".

[stevenr597]

They don't position the satellites at all. Current satellite internet technology uses geosynchronous-orbit satellites, 22,300 miles up. The Iridium satellite constellation (for satellite phones) only supports extremely limited data services, just enough for satellite phones to do basic texting. It's not until another service puts an estimated 4,000 satellites into low-earth orbit that latencies will decrease. However, at that altitude, there is no "position a satellite"; each one orbits every 90 minutes, so your signal is constantly handed off to different satellites every several minutes, and it's possible if not likely that there are times where your traffic goes up to one satellite, OVER to another (and maybe a few times to another...) before then heading down to land, or vice versa.

 

I hope that somebody informs Starfleet of this situation.

[firecrewcapt]

Here's my .02 worth.

We were on the Regal for the past 2 weeks also and have to say the internet was pretty much what other people have posted. We did not have any TV service of any kind for 9 of the 14 days, continually getting bumped off the Medallion Net, took 1 1/2 hours to print out boarding passes for our return flight, continually be told by the front desk "We apologize for any inconvenience and our techs are working on it and that management is aware of the situation and will contact you when the problem is resolved. 40 cabins are affected by the glitch." Finally I told our room steward about the problem and low and behold the problem was fixed, moral of the story, room steward does a better job getting issues fixed while front desk blows smoke up your A**. Management finally called me back on the last day and gave us $100 pp "Goodwill Credit" for our inconvenience and also while talking to him I told him we were on last years TA on the Regal with absolutely no problems with tech, he stated that they had changed servers for tech, I told him I hope the bugs are worked out before Sept. because we are flying back to Copenhagen and sailing back to NYC on the Regal. So IMHO I believe the ***** itself is junk and affects more than what they lead you to believe.

[Haboob]

On the Regal transatlantic crossing the new “fast” Internet was non-existent. Apparently they didn’t test it out for connections outside the USA and Caribbean. After about 3 days from leaving the US internet coverage was spotty at best and you were constantly being bumped out so had to sign in frequently.... if you could get on at all. Sometimes the internet would be totally down for hours at a time. The problem is so pronounced that multiple times the Captain apologized overhead.

 

The purpose of this post is to advise those of you traveling in Europe on the Regal this season that if you don’t get the free internet.... don’t bother buying it. It will be an exercise in frustration as well as wasted money unless they figure out how to improve connectivity over here.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

The Regal's 1.5Gbps uplink is dependent of the O3b satellite

constellation. Apparently ...someone failed to look at its coverage

footprint:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?=55964349&postcount=32

 

As far as I know, they'll have to wait for someone to launch O3b-type

satellites into polar orbit before Regal will have MedallionNet speeds

in the Baltic.

[bobby3334]

The problem had nothing to do with where your room was located

I spent much of the trip on computers in Internet cafe and the problem was even worse there. As others have said it was lack of satellites...and was told location of

The ship in Europe and outside North America was the problem since the new system had never been tested outside North America. Go figure. Mike

[bobby3334]

If anyone on a Regal can get through on the Internet I would like to know what it is like in the Baltic

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums