Regal Princess High Speed Internet not so High Speed

[billco]

Currently on Regal Princess TA from Fort Lauderdale to Copenhagen. Download speed averaging 4Mbps down, 4Mbps up since leaving port. Fast enough to stream, but still much slower than what I had anticipated based on previous reviews.

[kywildcatfanone]

We were on two weeks ago.  I didn't do a speed test, but it did stream videos without buffering.  I didn't notice it being any kind of super fast, but adequate for my needs while on a ship.

[fishywood]

As the ship moves northward in the middle of the Atlantic you get further and further away from the higher speed satellite's coverage which is focused over the Caribbean. Plus the combination of multiple sea days in a row and the high number of Platinum and Elite members on a repositioning cruise with a bucket of free minutes to use puts a greater demand on the system. Its not as if the ship is dragging a 5,000 mile long network cable behind it.

[billco]

5 hours ago, fishywood said:

As the ship moves northward in the middle of the Atlantic you get further and further away from the higher speed satellite's coverage which is focused over the Caribbean. Plus the combination of multiple sea days in a row and the high number of Platinum and Elite members on a repositioning cruise with a bucket of free minutes to use puts a greater demand on the system. Its not as if the ship is dragging a 5,000 mile long network cable behind it.

Perhaps, but it was 4Mbps down in Fort Lauderdale before we got underway. This is the unlimited MedallionNet, not the 250 minutes we would have gotten. I was thinking that perhaps it is a different provider/satellite for the crossing than was being used for the Caribbean or it was throttled in anticipation of greater usage.

Edited April 16, 2019 by billco

[minabruuke]

I'm actually impressed by those speeds on a ship.  Those are similar speeds to what we were getting in our home up until a few days ago when I finally replaced our wireless router.   I'm just happy if we can get reliable enough internet to take care of work e-mails on the ship.  It is a huge bonus if it is good enough to make a quick call over wifi and check security cameras.  Aside from that, I really don't want to be online while cruising but I still appreciate that improvements are being made as we do need to stay connected for business purposes and the faster the internet, the less time we have to spend dealing with that.  

[candy4040]

We were on Regal and were very happy with speed on internet and cost was very reasonable.  

 

[fishywood]

26 minutes ago, billco said:

 This is the unlimited MedallionNet, not the 250 minutes we would have gotten. 

 

I knew that if I chose to purchase unlimited that my Elite minutes would more or less fall by the wayside, other than being able to use them on a second device at the same time the first one is logged on. But are those without unlimited relegated to a lower tier of connectivity (and logon priority) as seemingly implied in the above post? Sounds like with the launch of MedallionNet Princess now considers those of us who do not expect to exceed the Captains Circle benefit minutes second class citizens.

[Potstech]

Sorry but you are never going to get the speeds of a shore based system.  What the Medallion Net provides is way better and more reliable than what the ships had just two years ago. Your expectations are higher than the reality of the service.

[wheezedr]

1 hour ago, Potstech said:

Sorry but you are never going to get the speeds of a shore based system.  What the Medallion Net provides is way better and more reliable than what the ships had just two years ago. Your expectations are higher than the reality of the service.

Have to totally agree.  Systems are improving but never match what I can get at home

[billco]

7 hours ago, Potstech said:

Sorry but you are never going to get the speeds of a shore based system.  What the Medallion Net provides is way better and more reliable than what the ships had just two years ago. Your expectations are higher than the reality of the service.

I was going on two things prior to the cruise:

1. Princess promotes MedallionNet as the industry standard with speeds as good or better than hotel WiFi. We sailed on the Celebrity Millennium several years ago from Vancouver to Yokohama with unlimited internet of speeds around 2 Mbps.

2. People on CC have been posting screenshots of speeds much higher than what I have seeing.

 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2019 by billco

[musicpro442]

54 minutes ago, billco said:

I was going on two things prior to the cruise:

1. Princess promotes MedallionNet as the industry standard with speeds as good or better than hotel WiFi. We sailed on the Celebrity Millennium several years ago from Vancouver to Yokohama with unlimited internet of speeds around 2 Mbps.

2. People on CC have been posting screenshots of speeds much higher than what I have seeing.

 

 

 

Yes but were the screenshots of speeds on similar transatlantic cruises?

[billco]

5 hours ago, musicpro442 said:

Yes but were the screenshots of speeds on similar transatlantic cruises?

No. But, the point is the speeds were at the start of the cruise

[juniper berries]

Hi I think there was a similar complaint last year on the Regal transatlantic cruise that internet was slow. We were on the Regal last May in the Baltic's and the speed was really good. Had no problems with the internet. My husband had a problem with his phone he had a vpn enabled and Princess @ sea did not like that and he had trouble connecting to the internet as well. We even tried at the internet cafe for help and the could not explain why there was a problem. I had no problems with either as i had did not have any anti virus on my phone. 

Hope the speed improves and you have a great cruise.

[DDG 41]

I'm confused 4MBps is very fast, at least for me, so what is the problem.

[bemis12]

14 minutes ago, DDG 41 said:

I'm confused 4MBps is very fast, at least for me, so what is the problem.

 

Expectation gap.  🙂

[cruisequeen4ever]

As someone else said, people on last year’s transatlantic were saying it wasn’t high speed, too. That’s unfortunate. 

[billco]

Well, after using it for the past week, I have to say it has been adequate. Might take a while to load, but I have been able to stream Netflix and Prime as well as my local tv programs. It has been a steady 4 Mbps all week as we make our way across the Atlantic.

[Colo Cruiser]

Been on the Regal a few times since the inception of MedallionNet and has surpassed all of my expectations of internet service available on a cruise. 

Guess I will just keep having to “put up with it eh”. 

Bummer

[hobbyfarmer2]

On 4/16/2019 at 9:54 AM, billco said:

Currently on Regal Princess TA from Fort Lauderdale to Copenhagen. Download speed averaging 4Mbps down, 4Mbps up since leaving port. Fast enough to stream, but still much slower than what I had anticipated based on previous reviews.

We were b2b on Regal lasst week just before the TA and averaged about 6mb/s down and 3 or so up when I bothered to check.  Throughput is affected by avbl bandwidth and how many are using at a particular moment.  Latitude also matters as the sats are geosynchronous orbiting at the equator.  More North means slower.  I imagine that a lot of people are accessing on a TA at tge same time slowing everyone down.  Your speeds actually sound pretty good to me.  Expecting anything near land line speeds is unrealistic.  Don't worry, be happy - you are cruising.

[AF-1]

billco,  have you gone down and spoke with the tech guys at the internet desk?  Maybe they can give you the run down on what speed you should expect.

[golfb4cruzing]

I am an early riser, 5am or so. I would go and get a cup of coffee at the IC and relax while communicating via FB. Most mornings it was all I expected and didn't experience any slowness or lag time.