Wi-Fi one device at a time or just one device?

[ddlb]

Am I correct in that the wifi for one device cannot be switched between my ipad and iphone?

[MotownVoice]

Although I cannot speak with authority, because I haven't been with MSC yet ... I've seen the answer be "yes, that's correct" several times with multiple MSC veterans.  The basis being that the wifi equipment records your IP and MAC address and from that moment foreward will not allow any other address to connect without an override from IT.

Edited August 4, 2021 by MotownVoice

[ddlb]

Thank you Motown voice you are a wealth of knowledge!! I appreciate it this being my first MSC. 

[robc1972]

I did MSC out of Europe a few years ago, it was just one device at a time, I was able to log out one device and log in another whenever I wanted to, same as on Carnival and Royal.
I am on MSC out of Florida on November 6th so hopefully it is the same thing here.

[Até]

How could MSC sell the two, three and four device plans if people could just log all their devices in on a one device plan?  In the past with some data limited plans it was possible to use multiple devices as long as only one was logged in at a time.  The new plans are unlimited data and are sold per device.  The system now logs the MAC address of the device and links it to your internet plan.  So if you bought the one device plan once you register that device that is the one device you can use from then on.

[robc1972]

6 minutes ago, Até said:

How could MSC sell the two, three and four device plans if people could just log all their devices in on a one device plan?

Families would buy it or people that need a phone and a laptop to connect at the same time.
Royal and Carnival also sell by device and can switch between devices, can just have one logged in at a time and will logg off the other when a new logs in, was that way on MSC Poesia 3 years ago.

When did MSC make the change?

[Até]

1 hour ago, robc1972 said:

When did MSC make the change?

My question was rhetorical.  I think the new plans started last Fall, obviously only on Grandiosa.  So since I haven't sailed since late 2019 I am having to go by reports here on Cruise Critic.  I agree that with the old plans you could use multiple devices because they all contributed towards using the same data allowance.  I will add the caveat that I'm having to go by other's reported experiences but once MSC went to the unlimited model using multiple devices has reportedly only been an option for those on the multi-device plans.  So you will still always get people stating they were able to use two devices, what some don't understand is that Yacht Club and the All-In package gives them a two device plan.  And as soon as I say that there will be someone post they bought a one device plan and used two devices....

[thesnoopster2]

13 hours ago, Até said:

My question was rhetorical.  I think the new plans started last Fall, obviously only on Grandiosa.  So since I haven't sailed since late 2019 I am having to go by reports here on Cruise Critic.  I agree that with the old plans you could use multiple devices because they all contributed towards using the same data allowance.  I will add the caveat that I'm having to go by other's reported experiences but once MSC went to the unlimited model using multiple devices has reportedly only been an option for those on the multi-device plans.  So you will still always get people stating they were able to use two devices, what some don't understand is that Yacht Club and the All-In package gives them a two device plan.  And as soon as I say that there will be someone post they bought a one device plan and used two devices....

My question is, can you hook up with your phone and then turn your phone into a hotspot??

[Até]

6 hours ago, thesnoopster2 said:

My question is, can you hook up with your phone and then turn your phone into a hotspot??

I've not tried it with the new packages but would assume so.  It would probably be a bit slow for multiple devices at the same time if you only have the Browse package.

[MotownVoice]

8 hours ago, thesnoopster2 said:

My question is, can you hook up with your phone and then turn your phone into a hotspot??

I would LOVE to hear a review on how this panned out if someone tried it.

[TnTom]

I don't think you can use WiFi on your phone AND use it as a hotspot (it is an either or proposition). Under normal circumstances, you are using your cell service in unison with the WiFi hotspot.

 

I would love to be proven wrong, though!

Edited August 5, 2021 by TnTom

[MotownVoice]

23 minutes ago, TnTom said:

I don't think you can use WiFi on your phone AND use it as a hotspot (it is an either or proposition). Under normal circumstances, you are using your cell service in unison with the WiFi hotspot.

 

I would love to be proven wrong, though!

Perhaps.  But if it worked as a hot spot, you could register your phone as the principle device and then everyone within range could use their laptops until it started to bog down the capabilities of the phone's hot spot.

[alyssamma]

2 minutes ago, MotownVoice said:

Perhaps.  But if it worked as a hot spot, you could register your phone as the principle device and then everyone within range could use their laptops until it started to bog down the capabilities of the phone's hot spot.

I think he's saying when you turn your phone into a hotspot, it is using your phone's cellular data and not the wifi data from the ship.

 

At first I thought this wasn't correct, but thinking about it more, it makes sense. I'm not sure how it would work otherwise.

[MotownVoice]

No.  A phone has to be using the wireless network to serve as a router for a hot spot.  Cellular would be using just the satellite signal that a usual phone call uses.

Wifi uses all of the relay towers (including the one on board the ship) to connect to the data network.

So this could work.

Burning through the battery would be an issue though.

Edited August 5, 2021 by MotownVoice

[alyssamma]

12 minutes ago, MotownVoice said:

No.  A phone has to be using the wireless network to serve as a router for a hot spot.  Cellular would be using just the satellite signal that a usual phone call uses.

Wifi uses all of the relay towers (including the one on board the ship) to connect to the data network.

So this could work.

Burning through the battery would be an issue though.

I can run my phone as a hotspot w/o wifi easily...I do it all the time when my wifi goes down 🙂

 

To piggyback off existing wifi and *not* use cellular, you'd have to put you phone in bridge mode...that's why I'm thinking it doesn't work that way. 

[JAGR]

48 minutes ago, MotownVoice said:

Perhaps.  But if it worked as a hot spot, you could register your phone as the principle device and then everyone within range could use their laptops until it started to bog down the capabilities of the phone's hot spot.

Maybe as a "principal" device! 😉

[robc1972]

I just tried my phone.

2 hours ago, MotownVoice said:

I would LOVE to hear a review on how this panned out if someone tried it.

 

I just tried it with my phone and laptop at home. with my Galaxy S9

Turned off cell data, connected to wifi, turned on hotspot and laptop connected just fine and browsed the interet, only slightly slower than connecting to directly to my wifi.

If they are limiting on the boat by mac address now then this will work as an option.

[Notts1964]

We bought the internet package for one device prior to our recent (17 July 2021) cruise with MSC. We assumed it would work as the RCL one does, where you can log out one device, then log in another. It didn’t. You have to just log in on one device and that’s it. 

I don’t know about hot spots so can’t advise on that.

[thesnoopster2]

15 hours ago, robc1972 said:

I just tried my phone.

 

I just tried it with my phone and laptop at home. with my Galaxy S9

Turned off cell data, connected to wifi, turned on hotspot and laptop connected just fine and browsed the interet, only slightly slower than connecting to directly to my wifi.

If they are limiting on the boat by mac address now then this will work as an option.

Thanks for trying this out

 

My situation is I have a baby.  What I'm looking to do is to hotspot my phone and then hooking up the tablet and/or an Amazon Fire stick to the TV so he can watch his baby shows either streaming or using YouTube. 

 

He's only 17 months old and already figured out how to unlock a device, pull up the app menu, locate the folder where the Google apps are located, then launch YouTube.  He also knows how to browse different videos and what to hit to skip ads.  Not sure if I'm proud he knows that already, or upset because he's already addicted to it

[MotownVoice]

7 hours ago, thesnoopster2 said:

Thanks for trying this out

 

My situation is I have a baby.  What I'm looking to do is to hotspot my phone and then hooking up the tablet and/or an Amazon Fire stick to the TV so he can watch his baby shows either streaming or using YouTube. 

 

He's only 17 months old and already figured out how to unlock a device, pull up the app menu, locate the folder where the Google apps are located, then launch YouTube.  He also knows how to browse different videos and what to hit to skip ads.  Not sure if I'm proud he knows that already, or upset because he's already addicted to it

You will need their most expensive package that has enough bandwidth to stream video content.   And honestly, if the baby's viewing pleasure is going to be that important, it seems like a good enough reason to dedicate a lap top just to him.  Because using a device as a hot spot will, practically speaking, reduce the bandwidth compared to the original feed right out of the box.

[Froggitt]

Trying to set a device as a wifi hotspot while connected to wifi will not work. However there is a solution....bluetooth. I just tested this with an Android phone connected to wifi, I paired this phone with my iPad (which had wifi turned off) and bingo.....a new icon appeared on the iPad where the wifi icon used to be and I could happily browse the internet on the iPad connected to the Android using Bluetooth and then using the Androids wifi connection.

[ciabelle]

On 8/6/2021 at 12:27 AM, thesnoopster2 said:

Thanks for trying this out

 

My situation is I have a baby.  What I'm looking to do is to hotspot my phone and then hooking up the tablet and/or an Amazon Fire stick to the TV so he can watch his baby shows either streaming or using YouTube. 

 

He's only 17 months old and already figured out how to unlock a device, pull up the app menu, locate the folder where the Google apps are located, then launch YouTube.  He also knows how to browse different videos and what to hit to skip ads.  Not sure if I'm proud he knows that already, or upset because he's already addicted to it

Are you able to load the laptop with movies/shows for online use? That way you don't need a data plan for it at all. Netflix and Amazon allow for offline viewing, and for YouTube, there are several *unofficial* ways to download videos to your local device. Google is your friend there.

[Bgwest]

On 8/5/2021 at 10:10 AM, JAGR said:

Maybe as a "principal" device! 😉

Maybe motown is thriving on the idea that he's a principled guy.  

[ciabelle]

40 minutes ago, Froggitt said:

Trying to set a device as a wifi hotspot while connected to wifi will not work. However there is a solution....bluetooth. I just tested this with an Android phone connected to wifi, I paired this phone with my iPad (which had wifi turned off) and bingo.....a new icon appeared on the iPad where the wifi icon used to be and I could happily browse the internet on the iPad connected to the Android using Bluetooth and then using the Androids wifi connection.

I've encountered that issue in the past, but I just tested it at home. Perhaps it depends on your hardware/service plan(s). 

 

How I tested:

On my iPad, I told it to forget my home network and Xfinity's. I enabled the mobile hotspot on my Samsung Galaxy 10+. I saw that my phone was still connected to my home network, and my iPad was connected to my phone's hotspot. 

Just to be doubly sure, I turned off "Mobile data" on my phone to ensure that it wasn't using cellular data anyway. I also turned off Bluetooth on my iPad for good measure. I then opened the web browser on my iPad and pulled up some sites, including YouTube where I was able to watch a video. Also, before you ask, my iPad does not have a cellular connection of its own either. The only way this could have worked was for my phone to be connecting to a WiFi network at the same time that it served as a hotspot. 

Cool to know, and it's pretty easy to test before you get onto the ship. Just follow the steps I did. 

[ciabelle]

There is one potential bugaboo which might prevent this from working onboard, but odds are pretty slim that it'll be a problem. Your primary device's access will be through a captive portal. It's feasible that it could be set-up to detect and block any indirect tethering to the network. Just as not all carriers permit using one's data plan for a hotspot. 

Whether that requires a locked bootloader on the user's device or if such restrictions could be done completely on the server side is beyond my knowledge. Worth a try if you'd like to have a tablet or laptop onboard with you along with your phone. If having net access to both is essential for you, then the safest move is to purchase a plan for the number of devices you'll be using.