Voom Internet

[DesireeC03]

Morning

we generally turn our phones off and lock then in the safe during our cruise - but we will be away for a week and are considering getting a package to keep in touch with the kids.  Please share your experience with it as well as the different packages.  Also - what is a decent price to pay?  Appreciate your help

[Clarea]

We have been able to use VOOM for email, web browsing, and WiFi calling.

[parsec0298]

The feedback I got last year was that VOOM will work just great for keeping in touch, including WiFi calling.  I went ahead and got the stream option as well though.  Everything worked great.  The only reason I regretted getting it was because it meant that I was reachable by other people as well.  I was hoping to unplug during the trip, and having the phone on me prevented that from happening.  Still there are other ways around that, and I'm going to be much more diligent on my next cruise.

[h20skibum]

The best prices we got were around $10 per day for surf, and $12 per day for surf and stream.  
 

All VOOMs are not created equal.  We have been on some cruises where Internet was very slow, or did not work at all in our cabin. 

[DesireeC03]

1 hour ago, parsec0298 said:

The feedback I got last year was that VOOM will work just great for keeping in touch, including WiFi calling.  I went ahead and got the stream option as well though.  Everything worked great.  The only reason I regretted getting it was because it meant that I was reachable by other people as well.  I was hoping to unplug during the trip, and having the phone on me prevented that from happening.  Still there are other ways around that, and I'm going to be much more diligent on my next cruise.

good point!  connecting only to a few versus everyone - that is the challenge!

[DesireeC03]

10 minutes ago, h20skibum said:

The best prices we got were around $10 per day for surf, and $12 per day for surf and stream.  
 

All VOOMs are not created equal.  We have been on some cruises where Internet was very slow, or did not work at all in our cabin. 

good to know

the difference between the two is streaming allows you to watch and download?  If I want to text and call kids - I would only need surf correct?

[PatMunits]

Voom Surf and Stream on Empress download speeds are 1.2Mbps with high latency and frequent interruptions. If your kids need to have stuff to watch then consider downloading shows from Netflix just prior to sailing so there would be no need to stream stuff. My kids were also satisfied with kids cartoons and shows that were available on TV in our state room. The choices were slim but good enough.

[Biker19]

1 minute ago, PatMunits said:

Voom Surf and Stream on Empress download speeds are 1.2Mbps with high latency and frequent interruptions.

I think @twangster may have registered a bit better speed than that - the max is capped around 4Mbps.

[PatMunits]

supposedly speeds are better on the newer ships. 

 

Location at sea was always reported as being Port of Miami because that's where through the signal gets retransmitted from. 

 

I've checked speeds a number of times throughout our trip. They never were much better even when we were docked. Empress doesn't connect to local telcos when in port. 

 

The connection speed was much better and totally usable on shore at CocoCay. There I got over 9Mbps with low latency and good consistency. That's the same Voom WiFi network/authentication as on the ships. 

 

Edited October 15, 2019 by PatMunits

[Biker19]

4 minutes ago, PatMunits said:

supposedly speeds are better on the newer ships

All ships are capped at that same 4Mbps (Stream); what some other ships (with O3B) have is much lower latency (pings in the 200ms range vs the 618ms you observed), which really affects overall performance.

[John&LaLa]

21 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

I think @twangster may have registered a bit better speed than that - the max is capped around 4Mbps.

 

My VOOM experience on Empress was abysmal.  Which is odd, because I was on the week before Twangster.  It was so bad, I didnt even try to do a Live report

[reallyitsmema]

We are on Serenade now and voom has been terrible. Spent the first day and second morning getting bumped off repeatedly. Went to help desk and was asked for my phone and code. As I am telling her my code, a couple is looking at me strangely and finally say, we have the same code!  They were there to see why they too were getting bumped off continually!  We now have a new code as do they. Speed is still very slow but we are at least holding a connection now. Line at help desk is constant so others must have duplicate codes too. 

[Biker19]

2 minutes ago, reallyitsmema said:

They were there to see why they too were getting bumped off continually!  

That is a clever way for the ship to limit BW use.

 

Biker, who wonders how that could possibly be done in error.

[twangster]

Interestingly last week on Majesty (an O3b ship) the Voom was terrible.  Very slow page loads, no streaming and frequent drops.  This was measured all over the ship for the entirety of the cruise so it wasn't a local wifi issue.

 

 

 A couple of visits to the Voom specialist yielded excuses that ranged from absurd to insulting.  He claims to have sent technicians to verify the access point right outside of my cabin door was working.  Their report he told me came back that everything was operating as expected.  I experienced the terrible speeds all over the ship.  

 

Arriving into Port Everglades on Monday I noted it was back to normal yesterday.

 

 

I'm still on board and it's back to what one would expect.  I am able to stream from a couple of different popular sources that would not stream last week.

 

The stone walling and absurd excuses then the sudden change back to normal has led me to believe the issues where either due to a degradation by the underlying service provider or they were intentionally cutting back throughput to determine if impacts would be noticed by guests.  Speedcast and O3b have the same parent company. 

 

Whatever the source of the change was, it was very obvious and impactful.  When I was on Majesty in August the IT manager told me this ship had 120Mbps down and 100Mbps up yet the Voom specialist last week showed me his laptop screen indicating only 37Mbps of throughput.  

 

I'm on Majesty for another yet so we'll how this plays out over these two weeks.

[Mellylucy]

Is  it possible to make calls using SKYPE?

I will be on Symphony.

 

 

[twangster]

3 minutes ago, Mellylucy said:

Is  it possible to make calls using SKYPE?

I will be on Symphony.

 

Yes.

[Mellylucy]

1 hour ago, twangster said:

 

Yes.

Wonderfull,

Thank you!!!

[h20skibum]

4 hours ago, DesireeC03 said:

If I want to text and call kids - I would only need surf correct?

Correct

[twangster]

Gloom Voom the slowest internet at sea has returned to Majesty.  It was fine on turn around day in Port Everglades but since leaving port it's been pretty bad.

 

 

The Voom specialist claims the speed results are being manipulated by them and aren't an indicator of actual performance yet websites load like the days of dialup.  "That's normal" according to the Voom specialist.  "It's always that way".  Ummm, no it's not.

 

Speculation on my part - they've cut the bandwidth commitment to the ship.  On turn around day no one is on Voom so it works okay with few people competing for the satellite link.  Once midway into the cruise and on a sea day like today the satellite link is way oversubscribed.      

[Clarea]

32 minutes ago, twangster said:

 ...

Speculation on my part - they've cut the bandwidth commitment to the ship.  On turn around day no one is on Voom so it works okay with few people competing for the satellite link.  Once midway into the cruise and on a sea day like today the satellite link is way oversubscribed.      

 

I agree that it looks like the numbers are bandwidth limited.  However, whicl it could very well be a cut, it could also be that the ship use (which has priority) is consuming most of the bandwidth.

[John&LaLa]

On 10/15/2019 at 5:13 PM, Mellylucy said:

Is  it possible to make calls using SKYPE?

I will be on Symphony.

 

 

WiFi calling will work better. To much latency with Skype in my opinion. 

[Clarea]

On 10/15/2019 at 4:13 PM, Mellylucy said:

Is  it possible to make calls using SKYPE?

I will be on Symphony.

 

 

Sure, no problem. 

[Tatka]

   Quality depends on the ship and location.

 

  The best we experienced was on Allure and Anthem in Caribbeans and Bahamas. I had my work conferences via Skype and other apps, I used VPN  to connect and work on  DB (pretty fast), hangouts.

 

   On older ships it is still generally good, but I did have problems with VPN/Michrosoft SQL Management studio on Grandeur even with S&S.

  In Bar Harbor on Adventure streaming just did not work period. Something about satellites (we got this explanation).

 

   WiFi calling works even with surf package.

  I also like to use Whats-app, but I have not tried it with surf.

 

  

[Clarea]

4 minutes ago, Tatka said:

   ....

  I also like to use Whats-app, but I have not tried it with surf.

 

  

 

WhatsApp has been reported to work fine with Surf.

[Mellylucy]

5 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

WiFi calling will work better. To much latency with Skype in my opinion. 

 

5 hours ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Sure, no problem. 

 

Good to know!

Thank you.