I Sure Hope Princess Contracts With Starlink!

[Rick&Jeannie]

Anybody catch the news about Royal Carib. getting approval to use Starlink internet?  I think this is what it's going to take to resolve the internet issues on board.  And in theory...it should not matter where in the world your cruise takes you!

 

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/royal-caribbean-fcc-starlink-internet

Edited July 8, 2022 by Rick&Jeannie

[AZjohn]

Didn’t Princess use to have high speed internet not that long ago?
 

Have read many posts here this last half year how much slower it is now compared to the speed they offered last year.

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

Anybody catch the news about Royal Carib. getting approval to use Starlink internet?  I think this is what it's going to take to resolve the internet issues on board.  And in theory...it should not matter where in the world your cruise takes you!

 

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/royal-caribbean-fcc-starlink-internet

It is too bad they would have to replace receivers installed not all that long ago in order to achieve "the fastest internet at sea".  Far from it now, it seems. 

 

Not sure why receivers are only good for one type of satellite.  Too bad they cannot just be re-aimed. 

 

Elon Musk is just lightyears ahead of most others with his inventions and businesses. 

[Alcairns]

Whatever happens it won’t happen quickly 

[Coral]

RCCL has always had faster internet.

[Ken the cruiser]

If I might ask, what is it you’re not being able to do on the internet now that you used to be able to do prior to the pandemic?
 

We’re currently on the Regal on a 21 day Med cruise and only ran into issues one time when we left Gibraltar on day 3 where we either lost or had a very low speed connection between 6-11 pm. But other than that, and we have 2,500 passengers onboard, we’ve been able to check email, surf the web, post to my Live CC thread to include daily uploading a bunch of pictures. Right now we’re sitting docked in Livorno, Italy and here’s what a speed test produced at around 1:30 pm.

 

 

I realize it’s not blistering fast, but we’re happy. What applications have you not been able to perform while on your cruise since cruising started back up?

[pms4104]

Princess would need to spend lotsa $$$ to be able to offer decent internet svc ...

 

Easier and cheaper to bundle it into the Plus and Premiere fares ...

 

If Princess can push those fares, perhaps pax won't be so likely to complain about any one included element.

 

I doubt they'll spend the $$$ to upgrade.

[AZjohn]

21 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

 

 

 

I realize it’s not blistering fast, but we’re happy. What applications have you not been able to perform while on your cruise since cruising started back up?

 

We were hoping to be able to stream which would need a minimum of 5 Mbps download speed.

This didn't seem to be any issue from this post from Astro Flyer this past November:

 

On 11/8/2021 at 9:36 AM, Astro Flyer said:

I recently sailed on Majestic along the CA coast & got download speeds between 70-110 Mbps which is much better than my 25 Mbps at home on my Apple devices where I can stream programming which is mostly sports on ESPN. I didn’t do any streaming but with that download speed streaming ESPN wouldn’t be a problem.

 

Two years ago thought the Sky’s WiFi in the Med & on a transatlantic was fine but more knowledgeable techies & Princess state that internet is greatly affected by location than which Princess ship we’re sailing.

 

https://www.princess.com/cruise-tips-vacation-ideas/video/onboard-experience/how-medallionnet-works.html

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

29 minutes ago, AZjohn said:

We were hoping to be able to stream which would need a minimum of 5 Mbps download speed.

This didn't seem to be any issue from this post from Astro Flyer this past November:

All I can say is on our Panama Canal cruise from SF to Ft Lauderdale on the Caribbean Princess in May, we usually experienced around 2-3 mbps download speeds, based on random speed tests I took. One time I actually saw a 5 mbps reading on a speed test, but it shortly went back to the average 2-3 mbps. You’ll notice on my above test the download speed is much slower than the upload speed. That’s why I currently have no problem uploading pictures from the Regal while it took 11 minutes the other day for my DW to download an 8 mb file to her iPad.

 

On Celebrity, we always have to upgrade to their Premium (formerly Streaming) internet package to get the 2-3 mbps download speeds. Heck, I couldn’t even open CC to post to a thread if we hadn’t upgraded from their Basic package you get with the All Included.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[billco]

1 hour ago, pms4104 said:

Princess would need to spend lotsa $$$ to be able to offer decent internet svc ...

 

Easier and cheaper to bundle it into the Plus and Premiere fares ...

 

If Princess can push those fares, perhaps pax won't be so likely to complain about any one included element.

 

I doubt they'll spend the $$$ to upgrade.

I thought Princess announced that they did spend the $$$ to upgrade in April 2021.. That's why they advertise internet speeds like working at home. I think something happened to their contract with their provider.

https://www.travelpulse.com/news/cruise/princess-cruises-announces-expansion-of-medallionnet-wi-fi-service.html#:~:text=Princess Cruises announced upgrades to,the connectivity expected on land.

[billco]

12 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

Anybody catch the news about Royal Carib. getting approval to use Starlink internet?  I think this is what it's going to take to resolve the internet issues on board.  And in theory...it should not matter where in the world your cruise takes you!

 

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/royal-caribbean-fcc-starlink-internet

I doubt Princess could afford Starlink. On the other hand, maybe they could.

https://www.engadget.com/starlink-maritime-satellite-internet-054320228.html

https://www.starlink.com/maritime

Edited July 8, 2022 by billco

[CineGraphic]

2 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

If I might ask, what is it you’re not being able to do on the internet now that you used to be able to do prior to the pandemic?
 

 Right now we’re sitting docked in Livorno, Italy and here’s what a speed test produced at around 1:30 pm.

 

 

I realize it’s not blistering fast, but we’re happy. What applications have you not been able to perform while on your cruise since cruising started back up?

 

 

Speeds while you're docked don't count for much when you spend most of your time at sea.

Here's a screen shot from when we were sailing on the Ruby in April.

Princess opted for a slower service sometime in late January or early February, probably to save money.

 

 

[Scottyren]

I was on the Island Princess for 14 days in May and only experienced slow speeds a couple of times and never had day-long issues with slow speeds.  I was streaming White Sox games and Paramount+ onboard daily and it worked great. 

[Ken the cruiser]

35 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

 

Speeds while you're docked don't count for much when you spend most of your time at sea.

Here's a screen shot from when we were sailing on the Ruby in April.

Princess opted for a slower service sometime in late January or early February, probably to save money.

 

 

I know. It’s amazing how slow gets. Below are a couple of screen shots from my ongoing Regal thread which show the varying speeds on our first two sea days.

 

I also noticed the upload speed is usually much higher in many cases than the download speeds. I don’t know, but I wonder if the speeds are affected by utilization? In other words, the more people onboard downloading messages, trying to download zoom meetings or stream movies, the slower the download speed gets.

 

This screenshot is on our first sea day after boarding in Barcelona and heading towards Gibraltar.

 

 

This second test was taken on our second sea day in the morning after leaving Gibraltar, probably before everyone started downloading emails, checking Snapchat, Instagram and other media sites, but probably not a lot of Zoom meetings as it was Sunday morning.

 

But I totally agree with everyone. It would be nice IMHO if the download speeds were at least consistently in the 2-3 mbps range, even when there are 3500+ passengers aboard, which will be the case on our next 2 legs.

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[AZjohn]

34 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Princess opted for a slower service sometime in late January or early February, probably to save money.

Though I have zero proof of this, I would bet the farm this is exactly the reason 🙂

[CineGraphic]

Geography has a lot to do with speeds, but I was on the Caribbean Princess in January, and everything was fine. I then sailed on the Regal in February and it was next to non-existent. (same itinerary, Eastern Caribbean, where the speeds are supposed to be blazing fast.)

[CineGraphic]

Just now, AZjohn said:

Though I have zero proof of this, I would bet the farm this is exactly the reason 🙂

 

On the other hand, they may have not been paying the older/faster provider during the shut-down so they were forced to change.

[Rick&Jeannie]

As the OP for this thread...let me clarify my desire here.  I don't *expect* Princess to go with Starlink...it's probably just a pipe dream!  😟 But it *would* be nice...if it could be affordable.

[MissP22]

Although I didn't do a speed test on the Enchanted in April during a Caribbean cruise, it was fast enough to stream movies from Netflix and Comcast without any delays. 

[dickinson]

On 7/8/2022 at 10:54 AM, CineGraphic said:

Geography has a lot to do with speeds, but I was on the Caribbean Princess in January, and everything was fine. I then sailed on the Regal in February and it was next to non-existent. (same itinerary, Eastern Caribbean, where the speeds are supposed to be blazing fast.)

We were on the Regal February 12 for 14 days.  We had no problem with the internet at all.  Maybe time of day was an issue?

[CineGraphic]

5 minutes ago, dickinson said:

We were on the Regal February 12 for 14 days.  We had no problem with the internet at all.  Maybe time of day was an issue?

 

I was on the Regal 2/12 as well for just one week, and download speeds were awful the entire time.

The medallion folks said they were aware of it. We had the same problem on the Ruby in April during our two coastal sailings.

 

Here's a screen shot from 2/17, a sea day.

 

[dickinson]

26 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

I was on the Regal 2/12 as well for just one week, and download speeds were awful the entire time.

The medallion folks said they were aware of it. We had the same problem on the Ruby in April during our two coastal sailings.

 

Here's a screen shot from 2/17, a sea day.

 

If we had problems they were minor so I don't remember.  My dh gets up real early and goes on the internet til I wake up.  I would go on at various times during the day.  I used it to text my child and also Face-timed.