VOOM Surf vs Surf + Stream

[jerick]

How do they prevent you from streaming, etc. if you just get VOOM Surf? Is it just a difference in bandwidth? It doesn’t seem like they can prevent you from trying to stream, FaceTime, etc., but a lower bandwidth could make it impractical.

[Biker19]

12 minutes ago, jerick said:

Is it just a difference in bandwidth?

Yes, there's no prohibition to stream with the Surf tier - it just won't work very well.

[Tatka]

YouTube works, streaming not so much. Connections could be not great with either during some periods of time.

[rudeney]

I believe the difference is the maximum speed cap placed on each service.  I have heard that Surf is 1-1.5Mbps, where Stream is closer to 5Mps (or maybe it's 3Mbps?).  Regardless, you will be lucky to see anything over 1.5Mbs even with Stream.  I was able to watch a football game on Hulu using Stream last Saturday on Voyager, but I had to put the app in "data saver" mode, and it would still drop out sometimes.  

[Biker19]

2 minutes ago, rudeney said:

I have heard that Surf is 1-1.5Mbps, where Stream is closer to 5Mps (or maybe it's 3Mbps?).

Surf is limited to .5Mbps and Stream to 4Mbps.

[Blur]

5 minutes ago, rudeney said:

I believe the difference is the maximum speed cap placed on each service.  I have heard that Surf is 1-1.5Mbps, where Stream is closer to 5Mps (or maybe it's 3Mbps?).  Regardless, you will be lucky to see anything over 1.5Mbs even with Stream.  I was able to watch a football game on Hulu using Stream last Saturday on Voyager, but I had to put the app in "data saver" mode, and it would still drop out sometimes.  

Surf is capped at 0.5mbps

[rudeney]

Just now, Biker19 said:

Surf is limited to .5Mbps and Stream to 4Mbps.

 

Thanks - I was only off by 1mbps!  

[Blur]

You can watch YouTube just be ready to wait a long time to buffer.

 

Surf isn't even good enough for browsing anything with lots of pictures but it's perfect for WiFi calling, texting and text emails.

[davy jones]

19 hours ago, Blur said:

You can watch YouTube just be ready to wait a long time to buffer.

 

Surf isn't even good enough for browsing anything with lots of pictures but it's perfect for WiFi calling, texting and text emails.

If it works with wifi calling, I might just get it.

[RobInMN]

Last fall on Freedom, I watched a football game on my phone with very little issues (YouTube TV) , other than when I went back to my room, then I had some stuttering. I did not change any settings. YTTV will change the streaming quality based on bandwidth.

Surprisingly, on Jewel this last summer on B2B Arctic Circle and Iceland/Ireland, we were able to stream YTTV on the Firestick most of the time. Granted, the further north we got, the more the quality of the video degraded, even less than normal "SD". When we were well above the Arctic Circle, that's when YTTV more or less gave up. Not complaining, as it's completely understandable why. Just giving our experience.

 

[rudeney]

5 hours ago, davy jones said:

If it works with wifi calling, I might just get it.

 

Yep, we used it regularly or calls and texts.  That seemed to work just fine even if Internet access was "slow".

 

3 hours ago, RobInMN said:

Last fall on Freedom, I watched a football game on my phone with very little issues (YouTube TV) , other than when I went back to my room, then I had some stuttering. I did not change any settings. YTTV will change the streaming quality based on bandwidth.

Surprisingly, on Jewel this last summer on B2B Arctic Circle and Iceland/Ireland, we were able to stream YTTV on the Firestick most of the time. Granted, the further north we got, the more the quality of the video degraded, even less than normal "SD". When we were well above the Arctic Circle, that's when YTTV more or less gave up. Not complaining, as it's completely understandable why. Just giving our experience.

 

 

One very important thing to keep in mind with Voom - and this may not get any better with Starlink - is that the wifi access points on the ship don't hand-off very well at all.  They don't use a modern "mesh" system.  If you move around and change decks, you should shut off wifi, then turn it back on and reconnect to make sure you are on the access point with the best signal strength.  Often time, we'd return to the room and have one bar and practically no service, but after shutting wifi off and on, we'd have 4-5 bars.  We just got in the habit of doing this anytime we went to a different spot on the ship.