Starlink live on Symphony of the Seas 11-14-22

[lleinbach]

Im sailing on Symphony of the Seas is live. We have had 2 sea days and the service has been amazing. I have had to work and it worked so good I forgot I was in the middle of the ocean. Thank you SpaceX and Royal Caribbean. See speed test below. Is there a consolidated list of which Celebrity and RCL ships have Starlink? For those who need good internet, its amazing!

 

 

[Biker19]

3 minutes ago, lleinbach said:

Is there a consolidated list of which Celebrity and RCL ships have Starlink?

Kinda,  but folks start new ones or post in various threads so it’s difficult to keep up. BTW, not all Starlink are the same. 
 

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Biker19

[klfrodo]

Would be interested to know what package you were paying for and if the prices have raised dramatically.

5.19Mbps is fast compared to "back in the day", however, it's still obviously throttled back.

 

Thanks for sharing though.

[Biker19]

11 minutes ago, klfrodo said:

5.19Mbps is fast compared to "back in the day", however, it's still obviously throttled back.

The "normal" limit is about 4Mbps for Stream, but during the initial testing/install phase speeds can vary wildly.

[brillohead]

Explorer is supposed to do installs this month with live trials in December.

Oasis currently has Starlink.

[klfrodo]

2 hours ago, Biker19 said:

The "normal" limit is about 4Mbps for Stream, but during the initial testing/install phase speeds can vary wildly.

I would argue that 4Mbps fell within the "normal" limit for Stream pre-Starlink. Rarely was I ever able to get better than 1.5. Occasionally 3 but my normal would have been less than 1Mbps with over 1200mSec of latency.

 I can understand the throttle based on the package one buys. I would think that 10Mbps would be the max for Stream, then throttle down to 5 with a minimum of 3 for the lowest package. All of this without any increase in current pricing

[Biker19]

29 minutes ago, klfrodo said:

Occasionally 3 but my normal would have been less than 1Mbps with over 1200mSec of latency.

 I can understand the throttle based on the package one buys. I would think that 10Mbps would be the max for Stream, then throttle down to 5 with a minimum of 3 for the lowest package.

Ever since 2014 when O3B started being installed on RCI ships, two tiers were introduced and throttled. Like now with some Starlink installs, those speeds varied during the testing phase (some early O3B installs had 25Mbps down speeds). Eventually, both offerings settled on the current limit of .5 Mbps for Surf and 4 Mbps for Stream. Most reporting suggests those same limits will continue with Starlink and there's no indication they would be increased.

 

The thing that changed over the three types of internet offerings is the latency, from a best of about 600ms on legacy installs, to 200ms with O3B and now maybe as low as 50ms with Starlink. It's that low latency that will allow most folks to perceive a performance improvement even if the speeds are kept at the old limits.

[klfrodo]

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

. Eventually, both offerings settled on the current limit of .5 Mbps for Surf and 4 Mbps for Stream.

 

The thing that changed over the three types of internet offerings is the latency, from a best of about 600ms on legacy installs, to 200ms with O3B and now maybe as low as 50ms with Starlink. 

You must be thinking about the marketing campaign or published date vs. real world experience.

I've only got a limited number of RCCL cruises but all of them included Surf -n-Stream internet access. The only times I may have experienced to numbers which you speak was maybe at 2AM while sitting under an access point.

[nolegirl01]

I was on Freedom of the Seas in August and they had Starlink there. The whole weekend I was getting about 15-19Mbps but one day I got 29Mbps. I had the Voom Surf + Stream package. It was great. We were able to watch Netflix cuddled in bed 🙂 Total game changer!

[Biker19]

16 minutes ago, nolegirl01 said:

We were able to watch Netflix cuddled in bed

Netflix, and a lot of other streaming services, work just fine below the 4 Mbps usual limit.

[Biker19]

34 minutes ago, klfrodo said:

You must be thinking about the marketing campaign or published date vs. real world experience.

On Enchantment this week (Starlink formalized as of two weeks ago according to Voom staff) and speed tests have been in the 3 Mbps range for Stream (ship at 97% capacity) - the latency, however, has been all over the place. As mentioned, that's a limit cap - doesn't mean one should expect that on every sailing all the time. BTW, Enchantment has similar speeds earlier this year with O3B.

[nolegirl01]

I’m on the Symphony of the seas now, just curious does anyone know where the starlink satellites are located on the ship? 

[resetjet]

5 down and 4 up is great.  Its usually the upload that causes issues and what you are normally up against.  Usually they give you a nice burst too and that makes it sweet.  Its amazing they can achieve this with 8000 clients.